GOOD COMPANY IS INVARIABLY the best cure for a melancholy mind, and Georgiana had been unusually low since the Colonel’s departure to the Hallendales’, where he was to spend a fortnight before returning to Pemberley for Christmas. She looked forward to the Christmas holidays, bringing an house full of visitors and, therefore, diversion. Mr. Bennet and Parson and Mrs. Overstowey were the earliest arrivals, although travelling the shortest distance. Darcy had long since abandoned his habit of wonder at the eccentricities of his father-in-law. Elizabeth suspected that her husband rather enjoyed Mr. Bennet’s spontaneous visits, giving, a larger share of pleasure than pain; Mr. Darcy was grown less censorious, and Mr. Bennet less capricious. Added to this, each looked forward to the opportunity to compare the latest acquisitions of their respective libraries. The Gardiners were next to arrive with their troupe of children, all smiles and presents, as was their custom.

Upon their first meeting, Georgiana had seemed to all the Bennet family as being not unlike her brother, but with more warmth and an obvious desire to please. A more intimate knowledge of her revealed that, beneath the intelligence, genuine accomplishment, and finely-bred manners, lay a very simple, generous heart, and not a little loneliness; she had been immediately claimed as one of their own, much to Georgiana’s delight. Like-wise, Mr. Bennet saw with satisfaction Miss Darcy’s sisterly partiality for Lizzy, and found her diffident, unspoilt, affectionate nature enchanting. He was grown fond of his new daughter, and ranked her in his estimation above at least two of his own. Hastening into the morning room, where Elizabeth had been writing letters, Georgiana was greeted by the sight of Mr. Bennet unceremoniously removing his great-coat, and Kitty and her husband smiling to greet her.

“Mrs. Overstowey, Parson, Mr. Bennet, you are welcome, indeed. We had not expected you for several days—how delighted my brother and sister will be to see you so soon as to-day,” Georgiana said, kissing Kitty and shaking hands with Mr. Bennet and Parson Overstowey. “My brother is about, out of doors somewhere.”

That evening at dinner, the conversation turned to the anticipated tour abroad. At Darcy’s urging, Elizabeth had written to her father, desiring him to be of their party along with Kitty and Parson Overstowey, but Mr. Bennet had never been fond of travel and the prospect of more than four months away from the peace of the parson’s library and the noise of his grandchildren was insupportable. Equally inconceivable was that Kitty leave her father for any length of time. Instead, both were content to listen to Darcy’s plans for the route, to confirm the merits of a Dover to Calais crossing over the alternative of Brighton to Dieppe, and the dispensability of the entire north of France.