impurities, were he once to enter it; and, depend upon it, Mr. Bingley

never stirs without him.”
“So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane

correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling.”
“She will drop the acquaintance entirely.”
But, in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this

point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley’s being

withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which

convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely

hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that

his affection might be re-animated, and the influence of his friends

successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane’s

attractions.
Miss Bennet accepted her aunt’s invitation with pleasure; and the

Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time than as she

hoped, by Caroline’s not living in the same house with her brother, she

might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of

seeing him.
The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Philipses,

the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its

engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment

of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family

dinner. When the engagement was for home,{180} some of the officers always

made part of it, of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and

on these occasions Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth’s

warm commendation of him, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing

them, from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference

of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and she

resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left

Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such

an attachment.