Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/177

 Rh modern affairs of a few days or a week. Distances counted for something when they had to be traveled in a carriage or a post-chaise; and when people came to see their friends in that fashion, they came to stay. Elizabeth Bennet and Maria Lucas spend six weeks with Charlotte Collins; and Lady Catherine, it will be remembered, does not at all approve of their returning home so quickly. "I expected you to stay two months," she says severely—they are not her guests at all—"I told Mrs. Collins so, before you came. There can be no occasion for your going so soon." Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood begin their visit to Mrs. Jennings the first week of January, and it is April before we find them setting forth on their return. Anne Elliot goes to Uppercross for two months, though the only inducement offered her is Mary Musgrove's prophetic remark that she does not expect to have a day's health all autumn; and her only pastime as a visitor appears to be the somewhat dubious diversion of making herself generally useful. It is a far cry from our busy age to either Miss Austen or Madame de Sévigné. The bounteous resources of a highly cultivated