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Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our

good journey.

"Your affectionate friend,

"LYDIA BENNET."

"Oh, thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she

had finished it. "What a letter is this, to be written at such a

moment! But at least it shows that she was serious in the object

of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it

was not on her side a scheme of infamy. My poor father! how he

must have felt it!"

"I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for

full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the

whole house in such confusion!"

"Oh, Jane," cried Elizabeth, "was there a servant belonging to it

who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?"