Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 27

With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and

otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton,

sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February

pass away. March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had

not at first thought very seriously of going thither; but Charlotte,

she soon found, was depending on the plan and she gradually

learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure as well as

greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing

Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There

was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such

uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little

change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey

would moreover give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the

time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay.

Everything, however, went on smoothly, and was finally settled

according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was to accompany Sir

William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending

a night in London was added in time, and the plan became

perfect as plan could be.

The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly

miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her

going, that he told her to write to him, and almost promised to

answer her letter.

The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly

friendly; on his side even more. His present pursuit could not

make him forget that Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to

deserve his attention, the first to listen and to pity, the first

to be admired; and in his manner of bidding her adieu, wishing

her every enjoyment, reminding her of what she was to expect in

Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their opinion of her--their

opinion of everybody--would always coincide, there was a solicitude,

an interest which she felt must ever attach her to him with a most

sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced that, whether

married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and

pleasing.

Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her

think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter

Maria, a good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself,

had nothing to say that could be worth hearing, and were

listened to with about as much delight as the rattle of the chaise.

Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too