Wickham,Lydia,were all forgotten.Jane was beyond competition her favourite child.At that moment,she cared for no other.Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense.
The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips, and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton.
“I suspected as much,”replied Elizabeth.“But how did he account for it?”
“If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you.Till I have your disposition,your goodness,I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps,if I have very good luck,I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.”
“Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November,he really loved me,and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!”
The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world,though only a few weeks before,when Lydia had first run away,they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.