“Let me write for you,”said Jane,“if you dislike the trouble yourself.”

“Wickham is not so undeserving,then,as we thought him,”said her sister.“My dear father,I congratulate you.”

“Ten thousand pounds!Heaven forbid!How is half such a sum to be repaid?”

“No,”said her father;“Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds.I should be sorry to think so ill of him,in the very beginning of our relationship.”

“EDW.GARDINER.”

“Is it possible?”cried Elizabeth,when she had finished.“Can it be possible that he will marry her?”

Most earnestly did she then entreaty him to lose no more time before he wrote.

Jane,who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath,came up with him,and eagerly cried out:

“At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as,upon the whole,I hope it will give you satisfaction.Soon after you left me on Saturday,I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were.The particulars I reserve till we meet;it is enough to know they are discovered.I have seen them both―”

“If you are looking for my master,ma'am,he is walking towards the little copse.”