Austen Said:

“No, nothing at all.”

“A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. They will take care not to outrun their income. They will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as quite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens.”

“It was a subject which they could not mention before me.”

“No; It would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me.”

she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago.

“I am sure,”

“I cried for two days together when Colonel Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart.”

“I am sure I shall break mine,”

“If one could but go to Brighton!”

“Oh, yes! — if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable.”

“A little sea-bathing would set me up forever.”

“And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,”

the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend.

“I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,”

“Though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.”

as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter;

detestable as such a step must make her were it known,

secretly advising her father not to let her go.

all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.

“Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.”

“If you were aware,”

“of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner — nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair.”

“Already arisen?”

“What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly.”

“Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?”

her whole heart was in the subject,

“Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of — or I may say, three — very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life.”

a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness.

the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers.

herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at present unknown.

all the glories of the camp — its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view,

herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once.

Lydia's going to Brighton

her husband's never intending to go there himself.

in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary.

the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time by their renewal.

Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings,

if he was acquainted with the former.

“Nearly three weeks.”

“Yes, almost every day.”

“Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.”

“Oh, no!”

“In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

“When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood.”

he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances,

for the felicity of her daughter,

she should not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible —

the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage,

the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.

though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a camp.