"She then put the pocket-book into Jacky's hand, and the equipage into Miss Polly's; but she hardly expected what followed. The two children burst into tears; Jacky rubbed his eyes to hide his; but Miss Polly sprang from her chair, and fell weeping into Mrs. Howard's arms.
"'We will, we will try to do better, ma'am,' she said; 'we will indeed.'
"As the children walked home they said not one word to each other; and a very few days afterwards the family left the country, Mr. Bennet not having had even the decency to call and say good-bye to the old lady.
"Mrs. Howard was half-way between sixty and seventy when the Bennets left the country, and was supposed by many to be older, for she had dressed like an old woman for many years; her hair had long been gray, and she had always been a weakly person, very small and very pale.
"She, however, continued to live in this house as many as seventeen years after the Bennets were gone, and every year till the last had her children's party; but a change was coming on her household--Crop had died years before, and Betty afterwards always went to town in the market-cart; but what was the loss of Crop to the loss of Betty?
"Betty was younger than Mrs. Howard, but she was called away before her; she had lived forty years with Mrs. Howard in this very house, and the loss could not be made up to her in this world.
"Mrs. Howard had a great-nephew, a surgeon, of the name of Johnson, who lived in a fair village, called Pangbourne, in Berkshire; and when he heard of the death of Betty, and how low his aunt was, he came to her, and persuaded her to leave the country, and go and reside near to him. She was at first unwilling to go, but was at last persuaded; she took nothing with her but her favourite chair, her old round table, her books, and her cabinet. Her nephew got her some very pleasant rooms in a house called the Wood House, about half a mile from the village, towards the hills which are near the place. That side of Pangbourne was in those days almost a continued wood coppice, with occasional tall trees towards the hills, and there was a narrow road and raised path through the wood to the town.
"Mrs. Howard's parlour had an old-fashioned bow-window in it, looking to the road, though somewhat raised above it; and Mrs. Howard, as old people do, loved in fine weather to sit in the bow, and see the few people who passed.