第123章[第2页/共4页]

She sat intently at work,striving to be composed,and without daring to lift up her eyes,till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister as the servant was approaching the door.Jane looked a little paler than usual,but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected.On the gentlemen's appearing,her colour increased;yet she received them with tolerable ease,and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance.

“There is a gentleman with him,mamma,”said Kitty;“who can it be?”

Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied.

Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table;but Elizabeth,to satisfy her mother,went to the window―she looked,―she saw Mr.Darcy with him,and sat down again by her sister.

“I begin to be sorry that he comes at all,”said Jane to her sister.“It would be nothing;I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well;but she does not know,no one can know,how much I suffer from what she says.Happy shall I be,when his stay at Netherfield is over!”