صفحة 480 من 817

"I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as

Lydia," said she, "though I am not her particular friend. I have

just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am

two years older."

In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to

make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was

so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother

and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all

possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as

such a step must make her, were it known, she could not help

secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented

to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the

little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a

woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more

imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the

temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her

attentively, and then said,--