rom some remark which Lydia let slip about Darcy being at the
wedding, Elizabeth soon began to think that it was only due to outside
efforts that Mrs. Wickham had succeeded in getting _her own_ husband.

An application for information which she made to her Aunt Gardiner
confirmed this suspicion. Darcy, it seems, had hurried up to London
immediately on hearing of the elopement; and he it was who, thanks to
his knowledge of Wickham's previous history, found out where Lydia and
he were lodging, and by dint of paying his debts to the tune of a
thousand pounds, buying his commission, and settling another thousand
pounds on Lydia, persuaded him to make her an honest woman. That is to
say, thought Elizabeth, Darcy had met, frequently met, reasoned with,
persuaded, and finally bribed the man whom he always most wished to
avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce.
Meantime, Bingley, accompanied by Darcy, made his reappearance at
Netherfield Park and at the Bennets'; and Elizabeth had the
mortification of seeing her mother welcome the former with the greatest
effusiveness, and treat the latter coldly and almost resentfully. "Any
friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but
else I must say that I hate the very sight of him," said Mrs. Bennet, as
she watched the two men approaching the house to pay their first visit.

Despite, however, rather than by reason of, this surfeit of amiability
on the part of the mother, the lovers quickly came to an understanding,
and this, strangely enough, in the absence of Darcy, who had gone up to
town. It was in Darcy's absence, also, that Lady Catherine de Bourgh
came over to Longbourn, and helped to bring about what she most ardently
wished to prevent by making an unsuccessful demand on Elizabeth that she
should promise not to accept Darcy for a husband, and by then reporting
to him that Elizabeth had refused to give such a promise. The natural
result followed. Elizabeth mustered up courage one day to thank Darcy
for all he had done for Lydia; and this subject soon led _him_ to affirm
that in that matter he had thought only of Elizabeth, and to renew--and
to renew successfully--his former proposals of marriage. When Mrs.
Bennet first heard the great news she sat quite still, and unable to
utter a syllable; and at first even Jane and her father were almost
incredulous of the engagement, because they had seen practically nothing
of the courtship. But in