"No," Anne answered eagerly, "the engagement's broke off. Miss de Bourgh told me so to-day. And fancy Lady Catherine introducing him to us at once! She must want us to be all friends together, mustn't she?" "Well, it's likely you'll go and spoil it in some way; you never caught the doctor, for all his attention," Lucy responded with true sisterly candour, "and I expect we'll find we don't see much of Colonel Fitzwilliam. He's staying at the hotel with the Darcys, and from the look of Mrs. Darcy I don't know as she'll want to do just what Lady Catherine tells her, all day long." "I shall go and sit by Miss de Bourgh," said Nancy, after a moment's contemplation of this dismal prospect, "and perhaps Lady Catherine will introduce me to the Darcys. You'd better come too, Lucy. We can't get along without knowing them now." Lucy consented, after some demur; and in the course of the evening their hopes of an introduction were realized, and their self-importance greatly increased; for Mrs. Darcy, curious to ascertain what kind of hangers-on had found places in her aunt's _cortège_ this year, had conversed for a short time with them both; and with the prudence and consideration which was characteristic of her, had refrained from expressing to her husband the full extent of the unfavourable impression which they created. "I do not much care for those new friends of my aunt's," Darcy remarked to his wife when they reached home. "Why, my dear, you were not even introduced to them," exclaimed Elizabeth. "Robert, I noticed, did not escape, but you did. Besides, they are related to the Ferrars at home; there is no getting away from that." "I gathered that they were, but I can hardly believe it. That man brother to Edward Ferrars! I heard him trying to argue with Robert about Nelson's tactics at the battle of the Nile, and it was enough for me. I have heard far sounder sense talked at a tenants' dinner--at the end of one, too." Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth laughed. "His views upon life in general appeared to suffer somewhat from lack of breadth," said the former, "and I can imagine it would be possible to find him a tedious companion. As for the ladies of the party, I did not have much conversation with them." "I think the look of them rather frightened Robert," said Elizabeth; "but, on the whole, they are tolerably unobjectionable. After all, one can't always pick and choose at a place like Bath, and, anyhow, we must be civil to Aunt Catherine's friends--it is not for very long. I am really going to practise what I preach, so you need not look at me like that, Mr. Darcy."