“Dear Charlie!” Kitty exclaimed.

“I echo that.”

“Fitz does not care for him,” Kitty said with rare insight. “He is too soft.”

“I would rather say that Fitz is too hard!” snapped Mary. “A kinder, more thoughtful young man than Charlie does not exist.”

“Yes, sister, I agree, but gentlemen are peculiar about their sons. Much and all as they deplore over-indulgence in wine, dice, cards and loose women, at heart they think of such pursuits as wild oats, sure to pass. Besides which, that rat of a female Caroline Bingley slanders Charlie, who she early divined was Fitz’s Achilles heel.”

Time to change the subject, thought Mary. It did not do to mingle her sense of loss with a far more important grief, her love for Charlie. “We may expect the Collinses tomorrow.”

“Oh, Lord!” Kitty groaned, then chuckled. “Do you remember how you mooned over that dreadful man? You really were a pathetic creature in those days, Mary. What happened to change you? Or are you still sighing for Mr. Collins?”

“Not I! Time and too little to do cured me. There are only so many years one can fritter away on inappropriate desires, and after Charlie came to stay that first time, I began to see the error of my ways. Or at least,” Mary admitted honestly, “Charlie showed me. All he did was ask me why I had no thoughts of my own, and wonder at it. Ten years old! He made me promise to give up reading Christian books, as he called them, in favour of great thoughts. The kind of thoughts, he said, that would prick my mind into working. Even then he was quite godless, you know. When Mr. and Mrs. Collins came to call, he pitied them. Mr. Collins for his crassness and stupidity, Charlotte for her determination to make Mr. Collins seem more tolerable.” Lizzie’s smile lit Mary’s face-warm, loving, amused. “Yes, Kitty, you have Charlie to thank for what you see today, even to the spots and the tooth. It was he who asked his Mama what could be done about them.”