第138章[第1頁/共6頁]

“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?”was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.

“My dearest sister,now be serious.I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know,without delay.Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”

“Why,I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley.I am afraid you will be angry.”

Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal;yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet.

The evening passed quietly,unmarked by anything extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed,the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth;and Elizabeth,agitated and confused,rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so;for,besides the immediate embarrassment,there were other evils before her.She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known;she was aware that no one liked him but Jane;and even feared that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.