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In which the arrival of a handsome man and his stylish sister is the leading subject at Pemberley's breakfast table.

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"Do not you think we had better invite Mr Sutton and his family to our ball?" – So enquired Miss Darcy of her parents as they sat to their breakfast, the morning before the great event was to occur. "They may feel neglected if we did not."

The group was small, comprising only the three Darcys and the two Bingley girls, for the morning was so diversely satisfactory to differing inclinations, that a third of their party had already gone out hunting, and the remaining third continued in their beds.

Replied Mr Darcy, "He is not two days arrived, my dear. It is unlikely he would wish to attend."

"But it were polite of us to extend the invitation to the family," Isabella pursued, with an air of such studied indifference as entirely betrayed her real interest in the matter. "One would hate to accidentally slight one's newest neighbours."

"You are grown wonderfully anxious of their feelings since yesterday," remarked Mrs Elizabeth Darcy archly to her daughter. "Pray, what has inspired this sudden neighbourly consideration in your breast?"

Her daughter could not help blushing a little. "I was only thinking of our being cordial."

"I know what has happened!" cried Miss Rose Bingley eagerly – and despite her cousin frowning at her, and making other peculiar faces expressive of dissuasion, it did not prevent the young lady from declaring: "There is a handsome gentleman arrived!"

"Is there, indeed?" said Mrs Darcy, affecting great surprise. "You cannot mean Mr Sutton, I'm sure, for he is a white-haired gentleman of at least five-and-sixty."

"Nay, it is Mr Sutton's grandson, who has raven black hair; he is Mrs Ashby's son, and he is called Mr Acland Ashby, and he is vastly handsome, and I think not above five and twenty."

Returned Isabella a little crossly, "Your information is very complete, Rose – although I know not what a little girl of eleven years has to do with any gentleman, raven-haired or otherwise."

"I cannot help knowing about him," said Rose with great dignity, for she objected to being called 'little', "– Lucas told me who he was."

"And me, also!" exclaimed Briony Bingley, "We discovered it all yesterday. Lucas and Henry had gone riding, and Rosie and I thought we might as well walk up the hill and see which direction they went –"

"Aye!" interjected her sister eagerly, "and we saw Mr Acland Ashby ride up to meet them near the downs –"

"– Although we didn't know his name then, –"

"– But, at least, we could see he was vastly handsome, even from that distance, –"

"– So when he was gone away again, we rushed down the hill to ask my brothers about him, and Lucas told us that he belonged to the new rector's daughter –"

"– Who is a widowed lady –"

"– And that he was staying there for six weeks!"

Although this chronicle was not very eloquently delivered, its interesting essentials more than compensated its want of style.

"Well!" said Mrs Darcy, "And I suppose a gentleman's being handsome is as reasonable an excuse for us to be neighbourly, as any other one."

"True," replied Isabella, with some humour returned, "or, rather, it is the best excuse, Mama, where a ball is concerned. – However, since I've never laid eyes on the gentleman, I cannot vouch for his answering to our purpose. Unlike my cousins, who seem acquainted with everything ere it occurs, and everyone ere they appear, I knew nothing of this mysterious Mr Ashley, or Mr Ashtree, or whatever his name is, until I heard his name mentioned this very morning."

"His name is Ashby," said Rose Bingley authoritatively, "And I assure you he is vastly handsome."

"As this is the third time you've said it, I doubt not but that you believe so, Rose."

"I suppose we might send an invitation, my dear," said Mrs Darcy to her husband, "since there is the young lady, Miss Ashby, to think of also. She might appreciate our consideration."

"Certainly she would, if she is like other young ladies," replied Mr Darcy.

"I wonder if Miss Ashby is handsome as her brother," Rose mused, "for I never did see her yet."

"That she may be pretty enough not to disgust the gentlemen," said Isabella wryly, "and plain enough not to displease the ladies, is the most we can hope for. All else is down to the lady herself."

"I shall not be displeased if she is beautiful," said Rose. "I think a lady ought to be beautiful, if she can help it."

"I'm sure all ladies would help it, if they could," Mrs Darcy replied to her niece. "But I'm afraid the matter is quite out of mortal hands."

If anyone had been tempted to dispute this remark, it was prevented by the gentlemen arriving from their morning sport, in that somewhat marauding fashion particular to hungry, energized males upon entering a passive domicile well furnished with divers and desirable comestibles.

The breakfast table became something of an impromptu buffet. Items that ought to have been carefully assembled on a plate and delicately sawn with silver were disdainfully manhandled and generally annihilated with little or no regard to propriety or custom; nor were any thoughts spared for the persons yet to make an appearance: all victuals were considered fair game by the sportsmen, and especially no quarter given to any dish containing pheasant.

After their appetites had been thus assuaged, the gentlemen were promptly accosted by the ladies, who wished in turn to serve their own, less easily satiated female appetites – i.e. for news and information &c.

In a promising quirk of fate, it transpired that the gentlemen had met the very persons so lately under discussion – the handsome Mr. and the mysterious Miss Ashby – taking the morning air, not one hour earlier.

But alas, in satisfying their ladies the men proved woefully unequal to the task, for – although all four of them agreed that Miss Ashby seemed like a stylish girl with a neat figure, and certainly not ill-favoured – not one of them could vouch for the shade of her hair, the tint of her eye, or whether she could be conscientiously called "dashing" – and of the several guesses hazarded as to her height there ranged quite a spectrum, encompassing, "very diminutive", "rather middling" and "taller than most."