“Not so much as I could wish,sir;but I dare say he may spend half his time here;and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months.”
This was a lucky recollection―it saved her from something very like regret.
Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy,drawn when she was only eight years old.
“Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?”
“And of this place,”thought she,“I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own,and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt.But no,”―recollecting herself―“that could never be;my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.”
This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr.Wickham's being among them.
“And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?”said Mrs. Gardiner.