“DEAR COUSIN WILLIAM,—We have long neglected to maintain a commerce of letters, but I have learned through the public prints of your recent union with an elegant female from Hertfordshire and desire to tender you and your lady my respects in what I trust will prove an agreeable form. I am directing an entertainment at this theatre, which is designed to be in harmony with the general Christmas rejoicings, and, you may rest assured, in no way offends the principles of the Church which you adorn. Will you not honour it by your presence and thus confer an innocent enjoyment upon your lady? In that hope, I enclose a box ticket for the pantomime on Monday se’nnight and remain your well-wisher and cousin, “ARTHUR COLLINS.” Smiling to herself, Elizabeth reflected that the two Messrs. Collins might certainly call cousins in epistolary composition, while Charlotte anxiously inquired if the proposal had her William’s approval. “I am by no means of opinion,” said he, “that an entertainment of this kind, given by a man of character, who is also my own second cousin, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; but, before accepting the invitation, it is, of course, proper that I should seek the countenance of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” Accordingly, he lost no time in making his way to Rosings. Lady Catherine, who chanced to be meditating that very morning on a visit to London for the purchase of a new bonnet and _pèlerine_, was all affability and condescension. “To be sure, you will go, Mr. Collins,” said her ladyship. “I advise you to accept the invitation without delay. It is the duty of a clergyman of your station to refine and improve such entertainments by his presence. Nay,” she added, “Sir Lewis highly approved them and _I_ myself will go with you.” Mr. Collins was overwhelmed by civility far beyond his expectations, and hurried away to prepare Charlotte and Elizabeth for this splendid addition to their party. Early on the Monday se’nnight they set out for London in one of her ladyship’s carriages, for, as Mr. Collins took the opportunity of remarking, she had several, drawn by four post-horses, which they changed at the “Bell” at Bromley. On the way her ladyship examined the young ladies’ knotting-work and advised them to do it differently, instructed Elizabeth in the humility of deportment appropriate to the front seat of a carriage, and determined what the weather was to be to-morrow.