“I should be sorry indeed, if it were. We were always good friends;and now we are better.”

“I do not recollect that we did.”

“Come,Mr.Wickham,we are brother and sister,you know.Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind.”

“You certainly do,”she replied with a smile;“but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome.”

She replied in the affirmative.

“I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month.We passed each other several times.I wonder what he can be doing there.”

“I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble,my dear sister?”said he,as he joined her.

She held out her hand;he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look,and they entered the house.

“Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh,”said Elizabeth.“It must be something particular,to take him there at this time of year.”

They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him;and unwilling,for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile:

“Did you go by the village of Kympton?”

“Undoubtedly.Did you see him while you were at Lambton?I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had.”