“My dearest sister,now be serious.I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know,without delay.Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I advise Mr.Darcy,and Lizzy,and Kitty,”said Mrs.Bennet,“to walk to Oakham Mount this morning.It is a nice long walk,and Mr.Darcy has never seen the view.”
“You know nothing of the matter. That is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now.But in such cases as these,a good memory is unpardonable.This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself.”
“It has been coming on so gradually,that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”
“Good Heaven!can it be really so!Yet now I must believe you,”cried Jane.“My dear,dear Lizzy,I would―I do congratulate you―but are you certain?forgive the question―are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?”
Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously assured her of its truth.
“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?”was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.