第86章[第1页/共5页]

“I am sure I shall break mine,”said Lydia.

The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described.Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever;whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repined at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.

Their affectionate mother shared all their grief;she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago.

“If you were aware,”said Elizabeth,“of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner―nay,which has already arisen from it,I am sure you would judge differently in the affair.”

In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable,and Jane to make her resigned.As for Elizabeth herself,this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter;and detestable as such a step must make her were it known,she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go.She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour,the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster,and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.He heard her attentively,and then said: