“If that book is to go in the trunk, Lizzy, you must allow me to pack it.”

Elizabeth kept her finger between the leaves. “I have not quite done with it.”

“You said that before dinner.”

“The author has had very little assistance from me.”

Jane made room beside a folded gown and waited. It was a very small space, and a very reasonable offer; Elizabeth could object to neither without appearing to attach consequence to the volume. She put it into her sister’s hand.

Their departure was fixed for the morning. Downstairs, Mrs. Bennet had been persuaded that everything necessary was ready, though not that readiness was a reason to leave it alone. Footsteps still passed their door upon errands which, if neglected, might have delayed the journey by several minutes. Jane had taken charge of the last trunk. Elizabeth had undertaken to assist her, and had so far contributed a pair of gloves, two opinions, and a book which she immediately wanted back.

“Pray leave it until the gowns are settled. Miss Darcy was so kind as to lend it to me; I should be sorry to return it with the corners turned.”

Jane laid it upon the dressing table.

“Have you liked it?”

“Very much in places. In others I have been extremely well behaved.”

“Then I hope Miss Darcy will be satisfied.”

“She may depend upon receiving a clean copy.”

Jane took up a cuff whose trimming still wanted a few stitches. Elizabeth went to the dressing table and began again at the page which had occupied her so unprofitably before dinner.

This time she got to the end of it, and turned over. The essay concerned conversation, upon which the gentleman who wrote it had bestowed advice in such quantity that nobody else could have been heard while he delivered it. She agreed with him at first, for attention to others was a virtue, and a person need not speak merely to establish that he possessed a voice; but he had carried the merits of reserve a great deal farther than she was disposed to accompany him.

Elizabeth carried the book to Jane.

“Here. This is what I object to.”

Jane accepted the open volume, keeping her needle clear of it.

“He would have us consider a man wise until he obliges us to think otherwise,” Elizabeth said. “A very convenient arrangement for the man. He has only to remain silent, and all his neighbors must furnish him with understanding.”

Jane read the passage. “I think he means that we should not judge too hastily.”

“Then he should have said so. I was prepared to approve that much.”

“Were you?”

There was nothing in the question that Elizabeth could fairly resent. She took the book back.

“I make no defense of talking foolishly. I only deny that there is any particular merit in making other people do all the talking.”

“Some people find it difficult.”

“Miss Darcy does. She need not be made a rule for everybody.”

Jane bent to the cuff in her lap. “She will be glad to hear what you think of it.”

“I would not give her a lecture.”

“You need not. You may disagree very pleasantly when you choose.”

Elizabeth took a short length of ribbon from Jane’s workbox and laid it between the pages. She had an excellent answer to the author’s next objection. A man might think before he spoke without obliging the whole room to observe the length of his deliberation. Mr. Darcy would defend the pause, she supposed. He would not admit that his silence required more attention than another person’s speech; he would receive the accusation gravely, consider it, and make her wait for the very answer by which he meant to disprove it.

Elizabeth laughed. Jane looked up.

“The author has been answered,” Elizabeth said.

She turned back a leaf.

“I believe there is something earlier which contradicts him.”

“You may show Miss Darcy both passages.”

“Perhaps.”

Jane drew the cuff toward the candle. Elizabeth left the second passage unfound and put the book down beside the first of her traveling gloves.

Her sister’s work was nearly finished. She had altered a little trimming which had troubled their mother, and the change, though too slight to justify the discussion it had occasioned, was pretty. Elizabeth came to hold the sleeve while Jane secured the last stitches.

“You will be expected to look grateful for that,” she said.

“I am grateful.”

“Then my mother has nothing left to desire.”

Jane smiled without answering. A letter lay beneath her workbox, showing only a corner of the direction. She had brought it upstairs to read before they dressed, and had not yet put it with the others.

Elizabeth kept the sleeve steady. Jane had been quiet over her work in London too, but there had been evenings when nothing could be found to amuse her, and she had met every effort with the same gentle assurance that she was perfectly well. The needle had moved as steadily then; there had been no letter waiting to be read again when the work was done.

“Do you think the journey will tire you?” she asked.

“No more than it tires you.”

“That is not a very exact measure. I intend to complain whenever there is nothing better to do.”

“Then I shall have very little occasion to be dull.”

Jane cut the thread and turned the sleeve for inspection. Elizabeth approved it, and was rewarded by a smile which required no encouragement to remain.

“I am glad you are coming, Lizzy.”

“You could hardly have expected to leave me behind.”

“I should have been sorry if you had wished it.”

Elizabeth smoothed the cuff before releasing it. Jane was to have her chance of happiness without being left alone among people who had once found it convenient to neglect her. The prospect of sitting at Mr. Darcy’s table for weeks together had lately taken up an unreasonable share of the time properly belonging to Jane.

The door opened before Elizabeth could answer.

“Not shut yet!” Mrs. Bennet cried. “I told Hill you could not possibly have finished. Jane, my love, let me see the sleeve.”

She examined the work, praised the alteration as something she had always said would answer, and discovered that Elizabeth’s gloves were not together.

“You will be looking for those at six in the morning. And what is this book doing here? Your father has books enough to weary the whole carriage.”

“Miss Darcy lent it to Lizzy,” Jane said.

“Then take particular care of it. We must not have Mr. Darcy supposing that we do not know how to treat a borrowed book.”

“I have neither torn it nor written in it, Mamma.”

“I am very glad to hear it. You are so fond of finding fault with what you read that one never knows where it may end.”

“Beside my father’s volume of essays, I expect. The two essayists may advise each other and spare the rest of us.”

Mrs. Bennet lifted the upper gown in the trunk, satisfied herself that the one beneath it was the one she remembered putting there, and replaced it with less exactness than Jane had employed.

“You must not spend the visit finding fault with everything, Lizzy. It is very well at home, where your father laughs; but Mr. Darcy will expect to be pleased in his own house.”

“Then he has invited the wrong people. Papa will not undertake it.”

“Your father may do as he likes. You must be agreeable. I do not know what your aunt has been saying of him, but I remember his manners perfectly. A man who can stand about a room looking as if nobody in it were fit to be spoken to will not like to be laughed at before his own servants.”

“He did not object to being contradicted before them in London.”

Jane folded a stocking.

“Did you contradict him?” her mother demanded.

“There was some conversation about Derbyshire.”

“And what can you know of Derbyshire, that you should contradict a man who lives there?”

Elizabeth could not recommend the circumstances of that conversation by describing them. “He seemed able to bear it.”

“Gentlemen will bear a great deal for an evening. A visit is quite another thing. You must remember that you are going for Jane’s sake.”

“I shall endeavor not to forget Jane while sharing her room.”

Mrs. Bennet found the second glove beneath a shawl and placed it emphatically beside the first. Having established both her daughters’ duties and their means of performing them, she kissed Jane, directed Elizabeth to assist her sister, and went downstairs to learn why the trunks were not yet in the hall.

Elizabeth restored the gown her mother had disturbed. Jane gathered her sewing things. The book lay between the gloves and the edge of the dressing table, with the ribbon still showing where the essay had become objectionable.

“My mother need not be uneasy,” Elizabeth said at last. “I have no wish to quarrel with our host.”

“I did not suppose you had.”

“Nor to be obliged to agree with him.”

“You were not obliged to agree with him in London.”

Jane said it gently, without looking up from the workbox. Elizabeth tucked a loose end of muslin into the corner of the trunk and wished her mother had stayed to make some less reasonable observation.

“An evening is soon over,” she said. “We shall be at Pemberley a great deal longer.”

“Then you need not settle all your disagreements at once.”

Elizabeth had no answer ready. There would, at least, be Miss Darcy, and their father, and Mrs. Annesley. There would also be Miss Bingley. Elizabeth shut the trunk with more decision than its contents required.

“There. I believe we may now survive the journey.”

“You have left the book.”

“It may go with us in the carriage.”

“Shall I put it with my work?”

Elizabeth picked it up. “I may want it before you do.”

Jane made no difficulty. She slipped her letter into its little packet and rose to help with the fastening. The clasp caught, as it had caught on the way from London; they had to press together before it would take.

“This trunk likes journeys no better than Papa does,” Elizabeth said, and Jane laughed.

The last of the packing was done. Jane moved to the window to draw the curtain, then paused beside the dressing table.

“I think we shall find something to enjoy,” she said.

Elizabeth had the book in her hand, ready to lay beside her gloves. She opened it instead.

“Come and hear what he recommends to a person who wishes to be agreeable. We may yet be saved a great deal of trouble.”

Jane brought her chair nearer. Elizabeth moved the candle between them and began to read.