“Anne! There you are. You have been quite an age arriving since I sent for you, which I do not think shews evidence of the respect to which I am naturally entitled. However, I would never mention such a trifling slight, as you know I never regard my own feelings. I have decided our plans for the next several months and wished to give you information so that you may begin your preparations. Instead of removing to Bath or Tunbridge, we will go up to London. We may then be in Bath by the autumn and—if I carry my way—in Derbyshire for Christmas. I am interested to see what a confusion that Bennet girl has made of Pemberley. As you well know, she is far too spiteful to invite us to stay with them, feeling—as she must—that her innumerable failures as mistress of the estate will encourage me to regard her as unworthy of her situation, but such apprehension on her part is unnecessary; I cannot possibly view her with more contempt and disapprobation than I do at present. We will travel to London, and then I will write to my brother, the Earl, to inform him of our intended arrival late in the year at Derbyshire.”

Hearing no response, for indeed there was none either required or any that would admit of opinion, Lady Catherine continued, “Very well, then, you may return to Mrs. Jenkinson, and this afternoon I would like you to call upon the Collins family and announce our plan of being away, for I am far too busy with these arrangements, which I have undertaken on your behalf, to consider making a visit to-day. Whilst you are there, do remember my instructions to Mrs. Collins regarding the shrubbery at the parsonage.”

Anne affected astonishment, and replied when Lady Catherine had done, “But Mother, you did not explain why we are to go London. I did not think that you found London at all agreeable. On our last journey thither, you decidedly expressed it to be full of ne’er-do-wells and cheats.”