第92章[第2页/共5页]

“There are very few people of whom so much can be said.You are lucky in having such a master.”

Mr.and Mrs.Gardiner smiled.Elizabeth could not help saying,“It is very much to his credit,I am sure,that you should think so.”

“If your master would marry,you might see more of him.”

“Perhaps we might be deceived.”

“In what an amiable light does this place him!”thought Elizabeth.

“I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him,”replied the other.Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far;and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added,“I have never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old.”

Elizabeth listened,wondered,doubted,and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects of the pictures,the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master,soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his many merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase.

In the gallery there were many family portraits,but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger.Elizabeth walked in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her.At last it arrested her―and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy,with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her.She stood several minutes before the picture,in earnest contemplation,and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's lifetime.