第138章[第4页/共5页]

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

“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?”

The evening passed quietly,unmarked by anything extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed,the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth;and Elizabeth,agitated and confused,rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so;for,besides the immediate embarrassment,there were other evils before her.She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known;she was aware that no one liked him but Jane;and even feared that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.

Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal;yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet.