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"An easy distance do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles."
"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy
distance."
"I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match," cried Elizabeth. "I
should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family."
"It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Any thing beyond the very neighbourhood of
Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far."
As he spoke there was a sort of smile, which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing
her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered,
"I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be
relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expence of
travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here . Mr. and Mrs. Collins
have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys and I am persuaded
my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance."
Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, " Youcannot have a right to such very strong
local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn."
Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair,
took a newspaper from the table, and, glancing over it, said, in a colder voice,
"Are you pleased with Kent?"
A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and concise and soon put an
end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from their walk. The tête-à-tête surprised
them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting
a few minutes longer without saying much to any body, went away.
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"What can be the meaning of this!" said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. "My dear Eliza he must be in
love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way."
But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the
case; and after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty
of finding any thing to do, which was the more probable from the time of year. All field sports were over.
Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard table, but gentlemen cannot be always
within doors; and in the nearness of the parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people
who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day.
They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then
accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had
pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more; and Elizabeth was
reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her
former favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw there was less captivating
softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind.
But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be
for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did
speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to
himself. He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel
Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was generally different, which her own
knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would have liked to believe this change the effect
of love, and the object of that love, her friend Eliza, she sat herself seriously to work to find it out. She
watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much
success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It
was an earnest, stedfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and
sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind.
She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth
always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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