“If your master would marry, you might see more of him.”
“Yes, Sir; but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him.”
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying,
“It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so.”
“I say no more than the truth, and what everybody will say that knows him,” replied the other.
Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, “I have never had a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old.”
This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man, had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was grateful to her uncle for saying—
“There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master.”
“Yes, Sir, I know I am. If I was to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world.”
Elizabeth almost stared at her. “Can this be Mr. Darcy!” thought she.
“His father was an excellent man,” said Mrs. Gardiner.