第86章[第4页/共5页]

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

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

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

The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described.Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever;whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repined at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.

In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable,and Jane to make her resigned.As for Elizabeth herself,this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter;and detestable as such a step must make her were it known,she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go.She represented to him 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.He heard her attentively,and then said: