"Hear me!" he exclaimed in broken accents. "My ruffianly, my wholly unjustifiable conduct, was at least unpremeditated; I had no thought of even uttering a reproach. I entered here but to bid you an eternal farewell! Louisa, I am a miserable, a desperate man----I am about to quit England for ever." Louisa, who was speaking at the same time, was commanding him to quit her presence instantly, or suffer her to reach the bell; but when he mentioned quitting England for ever, her voice became less firm. Yet she persisted in telling him that he must be gone--that she must not incur the unjust suspicion of having remained at home to receive his highly improper visit. How soon such commands were obeyed is not precisely known; when the party however returned from the walks Louisa was alone, though in manner strange and abstracted, and in a state of agitation so great, that when requested, as the only one who had not a bonnet to remove, to make tea, the small bunch of keys fell twice from her trembling fingers ere she could contrive to open the caddy; while every other part of the simple ceremony was performed in an equally bungling and insufficient manner: from all which it seems scarcely more than fair to infer, that whether the scene concluded in a reconciliation or a last farewell, the lady had had but little time to compose her nerves between the departure of her lover and the entrance of her friends. CHAPTER XI. Aunt Dorothea had fixed her ball for the evening of the day of Jane's marriage, that it might be a kind of wedding party; and such had been the mighty preparations for a day, thus doubly momentous, that what with selecting and displaying wedding finery--finding out where to hire cheapest coloured lamps, waiters, and forms--hurrying milliners, and seeing packing-cases carefully opened--hunting up newly-arrived beaux, begging evergreens, admiring jewels and new carriages, ordering ices and rout cake, bargaining with confectioners about a standing supper, and ordering in some wine; for, as a single lady, she had of course no cellar; then planning where the said wine had best stand, that it might not be drank by the waiters instead of the company; and, lastly, considering where to put the music, that it might be heard by the dancers, without taking up room; that, as Sarah said, when dressing her mistress for the great occasion, "It was surprising that she had a foot to stand on at last." The feet were a little swollen, it must be confessed, which obliged her, so Sarah, in support of her assertion to that effect told Mrs. Johnson, to snip the binding of her new white satin shoes.