“Aye,that is just like your formality and discretion.You thought the waiter must not hear,as if he cared!I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say.But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone.I never saw such a long chin in my life.Well, but now for my news;it is about dear Wickham;too good for the waiter,is it not?There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King.There's for you!She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool:gone to stay.Wickham is safe.”

“And Mary King is safe!”added Elizabeth;“safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune.”

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other,and the waiter was told he need not stay.Lydia laughed,and said:

“Yes,”thought Elizabeth,“that would be a delightful scheme indeed,and completely do for us at once.Good Heaven!Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia,and the monthly balls of Meryton!”

“She is a great fool for going away,if she liked him.”

Elizabeth was shocked to think that,however incapable of such coarseness of expression herself, the coarseness of the sentiment was little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal!