When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected,and always very short.Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild;that she had a new gown,or a new parasol,which she would have described more fully,but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry,as Mrs.Forster called her,and they were going to the camp;and from her correspondence with her sister,there was still less to be learnt―for her letters to Kitty,though rather longer,were much too full of lines under the words to be made public.
When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure, she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment.Their parties abroad were less varied than before,and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers