Volume 2: Chapter 2 Summary

The gloom at Longbourn is further dispelled by the arrival of Mrs. Bennet's brother and sister in law, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mr. Gardiner is much more intelligent than his sister is, and his wife is a favorite with the two older Bennet girls. While speaking to Elizabeth one evening about Jane's difficulty with Mr. Bingley, Mrs. Gardiner offers to take Jane back to London with them when they go. She conjectures that a change of scenery may be precisely what Jane needs to forget the entire affair. Elizabeth agrees wholeheartedly, as does Jane when approached with the proposition.

Mrs. Gardiner meets Wickham during the course of her stay, and is not as taken with him as her niece obviously is. She likes him for just one reason: that he had grown up in the same area of Derbyshire that she...