"You will see Mr. Darcy there?"
"Well—perhaps I shall," said Harriet; "and I have a right to think about him now, or let him think about me, if he will. Mattie, you don't mind me going?"
"Mind!—why have I a right to stop you?"
"No; only I shall leave you all alone with that wearisome old man."
"He'll not weary me. Old friends never do."
"That sounds like a reproach, but you don't mean it, Mattie," said Harriet; "and, after all, I shall not be very long away. I shall take the train from London Bridge, and be there and back by eight o'clock."
Harriet hurried away to dress for her expedition; she came down in a flutter of high spirits, a very different being from the despondent, lackadaisical girl of a few weeks since. She had made up her mind to begin life and love afresh; uncertainty was over with her, and she was as gay and bright as the sunshine. But hers was a nature fit only for sunshine—the best and most loveable of girls when the shadows of every-day life were not cast on her track.
"By eight o'clock, Mattie; good-bye, my dear. Any advice?" she asked, pausing, with a saucy look about her mouth.
"Yes. Don't fall too deeply in love with Mr. Darcy, before you are sure that he is falling in love with you!"
"I can bring him to my feet with a look," she said; "bring him home here with a chain round his neck, like an amiable terrier."