Page 150 of The Long Road Back to Yesterday

Jane reached for her hand. “We returned the branches.”

“Yes, we did.”

From somewhere down the passage came Kitty’s aggrieved voice.

“Mamma! Lydia has made my bonnet up new and says she will wear it to church. Tell her she shall not!”

“I shall wear it, Mamma,” Lydia called after her. “It is all my own work, and Kitty would be a fright in it for she is too plain to look well in it.”

“Let her have it and be done with it, Kitty,” Mrs. Bennet answered.

“You always let her have what is mine!”

Elizabeth’s eyes filled again.

Jane’s amusement disappeared. “Lizzy? Are you weeping?”

Elizabeth brushed her fingers beneath her eyes. She could not speak of Lydia or the future, so she offered a small deception instead.

“It is nothing, Jane, dear. I was only thinking that if you win your wager, you shall marry and establish a home of your own, and I shall have to learn to do without you.”

“Oh, Lizzy.”

“Do not mind me. I am feeling sentimental, that is all.”

Kitty’s protest rose again from the passage, followed by Lydia’s laughter and their mother’s demand that they cease quarreling.

Elizabeth lowered her eyes to the letter. The hawthorn blossoms were beautifully drawn by Jane’s own hand.

Elizabeth folded the letter and slipped it into her notebook.

Chapter 45: A Red Coat

May 6, 1811

“Lizzy, will you walk into Meryton with me? I have nearly run out of embroidery thread.”

Elizabeth looked up from the collar she was mending. “Yes. I need more white thread for Papa’s collar.”

“I am coming too,” Lydia called. “I need ribbon.”

Kitty immediately looked up. “So do I.”

“You bought ribbon last week,” Jane said.

“That was blue. I think I want yellow or pink.”

Elizabeth put her sewing aside. “A remarkably difficult problem to solve before luncheon.”

Lydia made a face at her.

The four sisters set out soon afterward. Lydia and Kitty talked almost without interruption along the way, debating ribbons, bonnets, and which officers were likely to attend the next assembly.

They had scarcely entered Meryton when Lydia seized Kitty's arm.

“There is Mr. Denny!”

Both girls hurried ahead.