Their affectionate mother shared all their grief;she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago.
“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.”
“And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,”added Kitty.
The first week of their return was soon gone.The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton,and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace.The dejection was almost universal.The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat,drink,and sleep,and pursue the usual course of their employments.Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia,whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family.
But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away;for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married.A resemblance in good humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other,and out of their three months' acquaintance they had been intimate two.