letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as

follows:—
“My dear Sir,
“I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation

in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now

suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter

from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and

myself sincerely sympathize with you, and all your respectable

family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest

kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No

arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe

a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that

must be, of all others, most afflicting to a parent’s mind.{363} The

death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of

this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to

suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness

of behaviour in your

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“To whom I have related the affair”

[Copyright 1894 by George Allen.]

daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though,

at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet,

I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally

bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an

age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied;{364} in

which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by

Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair.

They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one

daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others: for

who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect

themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me,

moreover, to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain

event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been