Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied.

“There is a gentleman with him,mamma,”said Kitty;“who can it be?”

“I wish I could say anything to comfort you,”replied Elizabeth;“but it is wholly out of my power.You must feel it;and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much.”

She sat intently at work,striving to be composed,and without daring to lift up her eyes,till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister as the servant was approaching the door.Jane looked a little paler than usual,but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected.On the gentlemen's appearing,her colour increased;yet she received them with tolerable ease,and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance.

“Some acquaintance or other,my dear,I suppose;I am sure I do not know.”

Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could.She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent;hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire,she saw him, from her dressing-room window,enter the paddock and ride towards the house.