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the time, however, less welcome small Wickhams were due to appear any day; and Elizabeth found, as often before, that her assumptions and prejudices were kindly and gently rebutted by her sister Jane.
    â€˜She simply wishes to come to Pemberley!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘Lydia knows full well that aunt Gardiner has had no house at Rowsley for ten years at least. ‘Why, when I journeyed north with aunt and uncle Gardiner’ – and here Elizabeth knew she blushed, for she recalled so clearly her first visit to Pemberley as a tourist, when it was thought the family was away; and how Mr Darcy had rounded a box hedge in the garden and how delightfully surprised they both had been, after the first embarrassment – ‘even then,’Elizabeth continued, ‘we put up at lodgings. Lydia knows she has no aunt Gardiner to visit. And she knows Rowsley is but five miles from Pemberley. Why did she not write to me directly, if she wishes to come as a guest to the house?’
    â€˜It could be that she thought you would refuse her,’ said the simple, good-hearted Jane, ‘with Mr Wickham so much disliked by Mr Darcy, ever since he was a young man.’
    â€˜She writes to you because she believes you will find a way to persuade me,’ cried Elizabeth. ‘It isn’t fair on you, Jane; for I shall never be persuaded.’
    Mr Bingley came into the room at this point and remarked that he had heard a forceful tone and had come to see if assistance was in order. This was said with a twinkle, for Mr Bingley was as good-natured as his wife. It was nevertheless awkward for Elizabeth to have to give the reason for her raised voice – which had in fact frightened little Emily and sent her scampering from the room.
    â€˜Lizzy has read Lydia’s letter,’ said Jane by way of explanation.
    â€˜I believe our mother has done all this!’ cried Elizabeth, who did not want her refusal of her younger sister as a guest at Pemberley to be relayed in too blunt a manner to Mr Bingley. ‘It can only come from her: it’s some notion of getting us all together.’
    â€˜I would not be sorry of that,’ said Jane in as quiet a tone as Elizabeth’s had been feverish. ‘But you are the mistress of Pemberley, Lizzy, and you are to have the final word. Poor Lydia,’ she added, as Elizabeth looked about for a way of escape and saw none. ‘She will find lodgings at Rowsley if she does not leave it too late, I am sure.’
    â€˜I know a farmer who lets rooms just by here,’ said Mr Bingley. ‘Emily will like to go from Pemberley and play with her Wickham cousins when we are all there at Christmas.’
    â€˜I will talk to Darcy,’ said Elizabeth, for she saw with bitterness that Lydia and Mr Wickham could hardly be seen to be excludedfrom so large a house at a time of pious rejoicing. ‘I do not think Mr Darcy will want Mr Wickham in the house,’ was all she had to fall back on, now.
    â€˜A man as violently in love with his wife as Darcy is with you, my dear Eliza, would not care if there were a dozen Mr Wickhams in the house,’ said Bingley.

Chapter 7
    The next hours passed happily enough, with little Emily made to laugh and play again by her mother and her aunt Lizzy; and Mr Bingley making a treasure-hunt in the garden that had as its final prize a doll’s house constructed by Mr Bingley himself in the barn.
    â€˜It is beautifully done!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘A handsome house indeed’ – and, lifting Emily high to the windows of the bedchambers: ‘Look, Emily! You shall have some dolls to lie in those magnificent fourposters. And some very smart footmen to serve in the dining-room – I shall make them myself!’
    Elizabeth saw the joy in her sister’s eyes at the love and practicality that had gone into the making of the doll’s house. She was fortunate – but here Elizabeth caught herself up and