第88章[第1页/共3页]

He looked surprised,displeased,alarmed;but with a moment's recollection and a returning smile,replied,that he had formerly seen him often;and,after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man,asked her how she had liked him.Her answer was warmly in his favour.With an air of indifference,he soon afterwards added:

Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look;for a few minutes he was silent,till,shaking off his embarrassment,he turned to her again,and said in the gentlest of accents:

While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words,or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention,while she added:

“Nearly three weeks.”

“Oh, no!”said Elizabeth.“In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

“When I said that he improved on acquaintance,I did not mean that his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood.”

On the very last day of the regiment's remaining at Meryton, he dined,with other of the officers,at Longbourn;and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good humour,that on his making some inquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford,she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings,and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former.