Page 499 of 817

After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health,

good-humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn.

Everything wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in

town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer

engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual

querulous serenity; and by the middle of June Kitty was so much

recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears,--an event

of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope, that by the

following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not

to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and

malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should

be quartered in Meryton.