第121章[第1页/共5页]

“Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repine;―but,to be sure,it would have been such a thing for me!The quiet,the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas of happiness!But it was not to be.Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance, when you were in Kent?”

“Come,Mr.Wickham,we are brother and sister,you know.Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind.”

She replied in the affirmative.

They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him;and unwilling,for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile:

“Did you go by the village of Kympton?”

“That you were gone into the army,and she was afraid had―not turned out well.At such a distance as that,you know,things are strangely misrepresented.”

“I do not know.Mrs.Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton.And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt,that you have actually seen Pemberley.”

“I almost envy you the pleasure,and yet I believe it would be too much for me,or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper,I suppose?Poor Reynolds,she was always very fond of me.But of course she did not mention my name to you.”