e said he would. Accordingly,
wherever we met I allowed him to speak to me. I begged Lizzy always
to join in our talk, if she could, as it made me much happier, but
this she has not done nearly as much as I wished. Whenever I knew
we were to meet him, I also took care to tell Lizzy that it would
be no pleasure to me, and that if it was at dinner, I hoped I
should not sit next to him. I said these things to her oftener than
I should naturally have done, because I saw that in her wish to
disbelieve them she really did so, and I wished to make her
understand me, in case either Papa or Mama or the boys should be
speaking of it before her. You will say, why did I not speak more
to Mama herself?--partly because I was afraid of bringing forward
the subject, partly because I knew what I had to say would make her
sorry, and partly because I was not at times so _very_ sure as
to have courage to say it must all come to an end. However, after a
dinner at Lady Holland's last week, when he was all the evening by
me, I felt I _must_ speak--that it would be very wrong to
allow it to go on in the same way, and that we had no right to
expect the world to see how all advances to intimacy, since we came
to town, have been made by him in the face of a refusal. I do not
despise the gossip of the world where there is so much foundation
for it, and I have felt it very disagreeable to know that busy eyes
were upon us several times. It must therefore stop, but do not
imagine that I have been acting without thought. I am perfectly
easy about _him_--I mean that he will blame nobody but
himself, as I have taken care never to understand anything that he
has said that he might mean to be particular, and the few times
that he ventured to approach the subject he spoke in so perfectly
hopeless and melancholy a way as to satisfy me. I am also easy
about Miss Lister, as only a week ago she said how sorry she was to
see that I was happier in society without than with him; but both
he and they must see that it cannot go on so. What a stone I
am--but it is needless to speak of that. Only when I think of all
his goodness and excellence, above all his goodness in fixing upon
me among so many better fitted to him, I first wonder and wonder
whether he really can be in earnest, then reproach myself bitterly
for my hardness