Mr. Darcy alternately rode out with the others, or went with one of the other gentlemen to fish, it not being the season for shooting; all returned promptly for breakfast at ten o’clock, and lunch at one o’clock. In the afternoons, there were races, games, or visits abroad. It being the country, the Duchess ordered tea for four o’clock, and supper at eight, as the Duke and his wife were fond of early mornings, and had no turn for the activities usually associated with later hours. They enjoyed their children in a stile that did not call for sacrifice on the part of their guests, and Elizabeth noted with an unusual approval that the children were grown up remarkably unspoilt and useful, respectful and obliging—in short, as happy and healthy as loving parents, plain food, exercise, and naturally good dispositions could form them.

“What a blessing to be in the care of such natural parents!” she thought. “An husband and wife of equal temperaments and talents, mutually fond—and more—appreciative of each other’s society, and obliged by their companionship. How different from the common course of matrimony, where couples unite only to part for the best hours of the day, more careful for the approbation and comfort of their friends than each other. Or, like her own parents, inhabiting the same rooms, but totally separate in their thinking, any pleasure in the other’s society arising from the amusement provided by the ignorance, folly, or frailty of their chosen partner in life.”

“Mr. Darcy,” began Elizabeth one evening of their visit, “Did your mother and father find the same pleasure in each other’s company as I observe between the Their Graces? They seem not only very mutually attached, but so very alike! I have been used to believing such excessive similarity between husbands and wives results in so pervasive a tranquillity that ennui must soon starve any desire for the society of the other entirely away; although in my family certainly the obverse was true, but the result was the same.”

“I cannot decide the general case, but, yes, my mother and father shared many interests and pursuits, and were obviously very happy together. That is not to say that happiness in marriage is only possible where the tastes of each exactly coincide with those of the other, but certainly there must be some communality of pleasure.”

“Are you sorry that I am not more like Her Grace? She is His Grace’s equal in so many ways, that they appear more like sister and brother than husband and wife in the pattern of their intercourse. Surely such coincidence of nature is agreeable,” replied Elizabeth.