第84章

smile could be extorted from Jane.

    “I do not know when I have been more shocked,”said she.“Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief.And poor Mr. Darcy!Dear Lizzy,only consider what he must have suffered.Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion, too!and having to relate such a thing of his sister!It is really too distressing.I am sure you must feel it so.”

    “Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice,that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent.Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer,my heart will be as light as a feather.”

    “Poor Wickham!there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance!such an openness and gentleness in his manner!”

    “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men.One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”

    “I never thought Mr.Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do.”

    “And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just;but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”

    “Lizzy,when you first read that letter,I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now.”

    “Indeed,I could not.I was uncomfortable enough,I was very uncomfortable,I may say unhappy.And with no one to speak to about what I felt,no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had!Oh! how I wanted you!”

    “How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr.Darcy,for now they do appear wholly undeserved.”

    “Certainly.But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice.I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand Wickham's character.”