Their visits to Mrs. Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers’ names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr. Bingley’s large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.
After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed,
“From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.”
Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London.
“I am astonished, my dear,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of any body’s children, it should not be of my own, however.”
“If my children are silly I must hope to be always sensible of it.”
“Yes — but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.”
“This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.”
“My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. — When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well — and indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals.”
“Mama,” cried Lydia, “my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson’s as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke’s library.”
Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read,
“Well, Jane, who is it from? what is it about? what does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love.”
“It is from Miss Bingley,” said Jane, and then read it aloud.
“My dear Friend,
IF you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day’s te^te-a`-te^te between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers. Yours ever,
CAROLINE BINGLEY.”
“With the officers!” cried Lydia. “I wonder my aunt did not tell us of _that_.”
“Dining out,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that is very unlucky.”
“Can I have the carriage?” said Jane.
“No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night.”
“That would be a good scheme,” said Elizabeth, “if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home.”
“Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley’s chaise to go to Meryton; and the Hursts have no horses to theirs.”
“I had much rather go in the coach.”
“But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are not they?”