With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner.“But surely,”said she,“I may enter his county without impunity,and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me.”

“My love,should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much?”said her aunt;“a place,too,with which so many of your acquaintances are connected.Wickham passed all his youth there,you know.”

Accordingly,when she retired at night,she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place,what was the name of its proprietor,and,with no little alarm,whether the family were down for the summer?A most welcome negative followed the last question―and her alarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself;and when the subject was revived the next morning,and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference,that she had not really any dislike to the scheme.

The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away,and Mr.and Mrs.Gardiner,with their four children,did at length appear at Longbourn.The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way―teaching them,playing with them,and loving them.