t. This will never do."
"You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady
Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of
removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to
your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour
to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me
hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing."
"Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy,
for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to
Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed?
or had you intended any more serious consequence?"
"My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I
might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to
myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley,
and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made."
"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to
befall her?"
"I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth. But it
ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be
done directly."
"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and
admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But
I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected."
From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy
had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's
long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would
be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and
aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as
follows:
"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done,
for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the
truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed.
But _now_ suppose as much as you choose; give a loose rein to your
fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the
subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you
cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a
great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again,
for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your
idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I
am the