Chapter 53 315 neighbours every time they go away and come back again ."
" Well , all I know is , that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him . But , however , that shan ' t prevent my asking him to dine here , I am determined . We must have Mrs . Long and the Gouldings soon . That will make thirteen with ourselves , so there will be just room at table for him ."
Consoled by this resolution , she was the better able to bear her husband ' s incivility ; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr . Bingley , in consequence of it , before they did . As the day of his arrival drew near :
" I begin to be sorry that he comes at all ," said Jane to her sister . " It would be nothing ; I could see him with perfect indifference , but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of . My mother means well ; but she does not know , no one can know , how much I suffer from what she says . Happy shall I be , when his stay at Netherfield is over !"
" I wish I could say anything to comfort you ," replied Elizabeth ; " but it is wholly out of my power . You must feel it ; and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me , because you have always so much ."
Mr . Bingley arrived . Mrs . Bennet , through the assistance of servants , contrived to have the earliest tidings of it , that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could . She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent ; hopeless of seeing him before . But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire , she saw him , from her dressing-room window , enter the paddock and ride towards the house .
Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy . Jane resolutely kept her place at the table ; but Elizabeth , to satisfy her mother , went to the window--she looked , --she saw Mr . Darcy with him , and sat down again by her sister .