It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of Miss Bennet’s mind gave such a glow of sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent, or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else, for half an hour; and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed how really happy he was.
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ClearHe then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane’s perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself.
“With my mother upstairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say.”
[288] The height of the tomb or pile was a great proof of the dignity of the deceased, and the honour in which he was held.
“Where is your sister?” said he hastily, as he opened the door.
In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her father had been short and to the purpose.
[287] He vowed. This was a very ancient custom.
Dryden’s Virgil, vi. 261.
[286] “An ancient forest, for the work design’d (The shady covert of the savage kind). The Trojans found: the sounding axe is placed: Firs, pines, and pitch-trees, and the tow’ring pride Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke, And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak. High trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.”
“Paradise Lost,” ii. 948.
“And this,” said she, “is the end of all his friend’s anxious circumspection! of all his sister’s falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, and most reasonable end!”
Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of suspense and vexation.
“So eagerly the fiend O’er bog, o’er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the card-party, and was sitting upstairs with Kitty.
“I must go instantly to my mother,” she cried. “I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude, or allow her to hear it from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh, Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness?”
Elizabeth’s congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said, for the present.
[285] So Milton:—
Dryden.
“In vain I reach my feeble hands to join In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine! She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air.”
[284] Like a thin smoke. Virgil, Georg. iv. 72.