 danger as a
watering place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been
sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with
impatient desire, did not in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had
promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for
the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her
wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of
anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another
disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest
thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours, which the
discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have
included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect.
    »But it is fortunate,« thought she, »that I have something to wish for. Were
the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by
carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may
reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realized. A scheme of
which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general
disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar
vexation.«
    When Lydia went away, she promised to write very often and very minutely to
her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very
short. Those to her mother, contained little else, than that they were just
returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and
where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had
a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was
obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they
were going to the camp; - and from her correspondence with her sister, there was
still less to be learnt - for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were
much too full of lines under the words to be made public.
    After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good humour
and cheerfulness began to re-appear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier
aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and
summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her
usual querulous serenity, and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered
as to be able to enter Meryton without tears
