minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to

her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and

wishes must still be unshaken; but she would not be secure.
“Let me first see how he behaves,” said she; “it will then be early

enough for expectation.”
She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to

lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her

sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little

paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the

gentlemen’s appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with

tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any

symptom of resentment, or any unnecessary complaisance.
Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down

again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She

had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious as usual;{411} and,

she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as

she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps, he could not in her

mother’s presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a

painful, but not an improbable, conjecture.
Bingley she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period

saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs.

Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed,

especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of

her courtesy and address of his friend.
Elizabeth particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the

preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was

hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill

applied.
Darcy, after inquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did—a question

which she could not answer without confusion—said scarcely anything. He