"You know her well, do you not?" asked Lucy.
"Not very well, but I do hope to know her better."
Lucy meditated upon this: it was not very agreeable news to her; if Mrs. Darcy saw much of Miss Crawford, it would mean that Colonel Fitzwilliam would see a good deal of her, too. Lucy felt that after poor Anne's many failures, success did not look more probable here; and the result of her reflections was the question: "Is Miss Crawford as rich as they say?"
"I do not know what Miss Crawford's fortune is," replied Elizabeth in cold surprise. "She and her sister appear comfortably off."
"Oh, I only meant—" began Lucy, confused. "She is said to be such a great heiress, that I often wonder why she has never married." Then, as her companion did not speak, she added: "They say that perhaps she will be the next Lady Elliot, and that would be most suitable, would it not? his title and her fortune."
"I should not think such a match was very probable, but I scarcely know Sir Walter Elliot," replied Elizabeth.
Lucy could not help pursuing the subject. "Do you think Miss Crawford very pretty?" she inquired.
"She is very graceful and sweet looking; and her face has a great deal of animation, which is always so attractive," answered Elizabeth.
"Her complexion has rather lost its bloom, though, and she is so unbecomingly thin," Lucy ventured to say.
"I have not remarked it," returned Elizabeth, vexed with herself for having drifted into anything like an intimate conversation with Mrs. Ferrars. "Shall we join Lady Catherine? She is evidently wanting to collect the party. It must be nearly time to start for home."