to town again; therefore stay quietly at Longbourn, and depend on

my diligence and care. Send back your answer as soon as you can,

and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best that my

niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will

approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as

anything more is determined on. Yours, etc.


“Edw. Gardiner.”
{372}
“Is it possible?” cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. “Can it be

possible that he will marry her?”
“Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we have thought him,” said her

sister. “My dear father, I congratulate you.”
“And have you answered the letter?” said Elizabeth.
“No; but it must be done soon.”
Most earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he

wrote.
“Oh! my dear father,” she cried, “come back and write immediately.

Consider how important every moment is in such a case.”
“Let me write for you,” said Jane, “if you dislike the trouble

yourself.”
“I dislike it very much,” he replied; “but it must be done.”
And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house.
“And—may I ask?” said Elizabeth; “but the terms, I suppose, must be

complied with.”
“Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little.”
“And they must marry! Yet he is such a man.”
“Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there

are two things that I want very much to know:—one is, how much money

your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how I am ever

to pay him.”
“Money! my uncle!” cried Jane, “what do you mean, sir?”
“I mean that no man in his proper senses would marry Lydia on so slight

a temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am

gone.{373}”
“That is very true,” said Elizabeth; “though it had not occurred to me

before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh,

it must be my uncle’s doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has