impudence of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the

cheeks of the two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of

colour.
There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither

of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near

Elizabeth, began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood,

with a good-humoured ease, which she felt very unable to equal in her

replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the

world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led

voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for

the world.
“Only think of its being three months,” she cried, “since I went away:

it seems but a fortnight, I declare; and yet there have been things

enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure

I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I

thought it would be very good fun if I was.”
Her father lifted up his eyes, Jane was distressed, Elizabeth looked

expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of

which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued,—
“Oh, mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was

afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle,

so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass

next to him, and took off my glove and let my hand just rest upon the

window frame, so that he{388} might see the ring, and then I bowed and

smiled like anything.”
Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up and ran out of the room;

and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to

the dining-parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with

anxious parade, walk up to her mother’s right hand, and hear her say to

her eldest sister,—
“Ah, Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a

married woman.”