“May I press you to take another bun, Miss Darcy? I saw old Mr. Timmit wandering amongst his cabbages yesterday, so he is not dead. Last week, I was called to his bed almost every day, and he solemnly assured me of his imminent decease. His miraculous recovery is due, I am sure, to the fact that he was never ill in the first place, and enjoys the effect of giving his relations the inconvenience of a daily visit. As you well know, Mrs. Darcy, a Derbyshire man is a funny breed, hard and soft in equal measures.”

Mrs. Darcy seized the advantage of the briefest of pauses occurring at that moment, and, rising, took up her reticule and cloak so as to make it impossible to misinterpret the gesture. In little more than ten minutes, Mrs. and Miss Darcy found themselves outside and being waved off by the loquacious parson, but neither could speak for several minutes more, until they were well clear of the Rectory.

Elizabeth laughed, “That man is preposterous! I cannot endure his ramblings! To sit without the power of making some dissenting remark makes me feel somehow complicit, however unwillingly, in his views, and I cannot keep pace at all with the changes in topic. It is like attempting to take breath in a whirlwind.” As they drove on in silence, Elizabeth noticed that Georgiana looked a little pale and did not laugh at the parson’s foibles with her usual gentle excusings; but as she did not venture any complaint, Lizzy had to be content to impute any indisposition to the parson’s excess of both opinions and tea-cakes.

“Elizabeth, do you think we might make our drive shorter to-day, and return home by the fields?” asked Georgiana, “I suddenly feel quite fatigued and have a little of the head-ache.”

“There is little wonder to that, you poor dear,” said Elizabeth as Georgiana gave the horse the direction toward the home farm. “I will be completely quiet all the way home, and promise to offer you no tea-cakes for a week.”

That evening, Georgiana was still indisposed and took her supper in her apartments. Elizabeth was still not sanguine on the nature of the illness, but, again, with no explanation offered other than the general indisposition of the head-ache, it was not possible to enquire further.