“Not yet,”replied Jane.“But now that my dear uncle is come,I hope everything will be well.”

“Is my father in town?”

“Yes,he went on Tuesday,as I wrote you word.”

It may be easily believed,that however little of novelty could be added to their fears,hopes,and conjectures,on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness.

“And have you heard from him often?”

The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house as they entered the paddock;and, when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces,and displayed itself over their whole bodies,in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome.

“But you―how are you?”cried Elizabeth.“You look pale.How much you must have gone through!”

Mrs.Bennet,to whose apartment they all repaired,after a few minutes' conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous conduct of Wickham,and complaints of her own sufferings and ill-usage; blaming everybody but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the errors of her daughter must principally be owing.