第138章[第2页/共5页]

“There can be no doubt of that.It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world.But are you pleased,Jane?Shall you like to have such a brother?”

“I advise Mr.Darcy,and Lizzy,and Kitty,”said Mrs.Bennet,“to walk to Oakham Mount this morning.It is a nice long walk,and Mr.Darcy has never seen the view.”

“It has been coming on so gradually,that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

As soon as they entered,Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth,as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud,“Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?”

Jane looked at her doubtingly.“Oh,Lizzy!it cannot be.I know how much you dislike him.”

“This is a wretched beginning indeed!My sole dependence was on you;and I am sure nobody else will believe me,if you do not. Yet,indeed,I am in earnest.I speak nothing but the truth.He still loves me,and we are engaged.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?”was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.