"My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could,
whether I might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one,
or what I avowed to myself, was to see whether your sister were
still partial to Bingley, and if she were, to make the
confession to him which I have since made."
"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine
what is to befall her?"
"I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth.
But it ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper,
it shall be done directly."
"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you
and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady
once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer
neglected."
From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with
Mr. Darcy had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet
answered Mrs. Gardiner's long letter; but now, having _that_
to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was
almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost
three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows:
"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought
to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of
particulars; but to say the truth, I was too cross to write.
You supposed more than really existed. But _now_ suppose as
much as you choose; give a loose rein to your fancy, indulge your
imagination in every possible flight which the subject will
afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot
greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a
great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again
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