sister’s absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of

pleasure realized. A scheme of which every part promises delight can

never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by

the defence of some little peculiar vexation.”
When Lydia went away she promised to write very{297} often and very minutely

to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and

always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that

they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers

had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as

made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which

she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a

violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going to the

camp; and from her correspondence with her sister there was still less

to be learnt, for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much

too full of lines under the words to be made public.
After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health,

good-humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything

wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter

came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs.

Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and by the middle

of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton

without tears,—an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth

hope, that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably

reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by

some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment

should be quartered in Meryton.
The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast

approaching; and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter

arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and