第118章[第3页/共5页]

“Oh,yes!―he was to come there with Wickham,you know.But gracious me!I quite forgot!I ought not to have said a word about it.I promised them so faithfully!What will Wickham say?It was to be such a secret!”

Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall;Elizabeth was glad of it;―till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any satisfaction,she had rather be without a confidante.

“Oh!certainly,”said Elizabeth,though burning with curiosity;“we will ask you no questions.”

“Lizzy, I never gave you an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by,when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?”

Well,Monday morning came,and I was in such a fuss!I was so afraid,you know,that something would happen to put it off,and then I should have gone quite distracted.And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing,preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon.However,I did not hear above one word in ten,for I was thinking,you may suppose,of my dear Wickham.I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat.”

Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it;not equal to Lydia's for him.She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied,from the reason of things,that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love,rather than by his;and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her,he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.