Pride and Prejudice

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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 off 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 reappear 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