“You will laugh when you know where I am gone,and I cannot help laughg myself at your surprise to-morrow morng,as soon as I am missed.I am gog to Gretna Green,and if you cannot guess with who, I shall thk you a simpleton, for there is but one man the world I love,and he is an angel.I should never be happy without him,so thk it no harm to be off.You need not send them word at Longbourn of my gog,if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater,when I write to them and sign my name ''Lydia Wickham.''What a good joke it will be!I can hardly write for laughg.Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keepg my engagement,and dancg with him to-night.Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all;and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet,with great pleasure.I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn;but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit my worked musl gown before they are packed up. Good-bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster.I hope you will drk to our good journey.
“Your affectionate friend,
“LYDIA BENNET.”
“Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!”cried Elizabeth when she had fished it.“What a letter is this,to be written at such a moment!But at least it shows that she was serious on the subject of their journey.Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of famy.My poor father!how he must have felt it!”
“I never saw anyone so shocked.He could not speak a word for full ten mutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house such confusion!”
“Oh!Jane,”cried Elizabeth,“was there a servant belongg to it who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?”
“I do not know.I hope there was.But to be guarded at such a time is very difficult.My mother was hysterics,and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance my power,I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen almost took from me my faculties.”
“Your attendance upon her has been too much for you.You do not look well.Oh that I had been with you!You have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone.”
“Mary and Kitty have been very kd,and would have shared every fatigue,I am sure;but I did not thk it right for either of them.Kitty is slight and delicate;and Mary studies so much,that her hours of repose should not be broken on.My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn on Tuesday,after my father went away;and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me.She was of great use and comfort to us all.And Lady Lucas has been very kd;she walked here on Wednesday morng to condole with us,and offered her services,or any of her daughters'',if they should be of use to us.”
“She had better have stayed at home,”cried Elizabeth;“perhaps she meant well,but,under such a misfortune as this,one cannot see too little of one''s neighbours. Assistance is impossible;condolence sufferable.Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.”
She then proceeded to quire to the measures which her father had tended to pursue,while town,for the recovery of his daughter.
“He meant I believe,”replied Jane,“to go to Epsom,the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anythg could be made out from them.His prcipal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham.It had come with a fare from London;and as he thought that the circumstance of a gentleman and lady''s removg from one carriage to another might be remarked he meant to make quiries at Clapham.If he could anyhow discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare,he determed to make quiries there,and hoped it might not be impossible to fd out the stand and number of the coach.I do not know of any other designs that he had formed;but he was such a hurry to be gone,and his spirits so greatly discomposed,that I had difficulty fdg out even so much as this.”
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