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Elizabeth wrote No, thank you; that letter was for you on a separate sheet, then added a question about Jane's roses. She set the reply beside the outgoing post.

Lady Catherine's parcel contained a book.

Its title, Narrative Tyranny: A First-Person Account of Stock Character Oppression, occupied most of the cover. Her name occupied the rest. Darcy weighed it in one hand.

"I begin to understand why my aunt has been comparatively quiet."

"She has been saving herself for the footnotes."

Elizabeth opened it. The first chapter concerned curtains. The second established, at formidable length, that a woman might possess a drawing room without wishing to describe it on every appearance. A note disputed Darcy's early theory of consciousness so thoroughly that he took the book from Elizabeth and read it twice.

"She is right," he said.

"How fortunate that she printed enough copies to preserve the admission."

The old experiment with the forbidden limerick had ceased to trouble them after Lady Catherine demonstrated that she could write a whole page which no one had written for her before. They had tried again themselves. Darcy's limerick remained poor, but this time he had been allowed to finish it. Elizabeth had crossed out Creative expression: blocked in the early notes and written that attempt was blocked then. Darcy had objected to the reduced grandeur of the heading until she offered to enter the limerick beneath it.

Another envelope lay beneath the book. Charlotte reported six months of observations of Mr. Collins, followed by what she called a cautious ten-year projection.

He is likely to continue speaking, she concluded. I am likely to continue arranging the house so that I need not hear all of it.

Below that dry assessment she gave the dates for her next visit. She had come once already, staying a fortnight in the room Elizabeth had chosen for her. They had walked, quarreled amicably over cards, and spent an entire afternoon shopping for ribbon without improving their understanding of fictional existence. Charlotte had returned to Hunsford with a new shawl and a determination to make such visits a regular part of her life.

Elizabeth put the dates into the household diary. That was a kind of record she was happy to keep.

"There is an invitation as well," she told Darcy.

He looked up cautiously.

"Lady Catherine proposes a gathering. For those who have become aware. She wishes us to discuss whether we would host it next year."

"Here?"

"She says Rosings is too closely associated with oppression."

"It is also farther from the people she has invited. She has concealed a practical consideration beneath a principle."

"We might agree to one afternoon. With no compulsory speeches."

He considered it. "And no publication of private letters."

"And she must ask before inviting anyone from another century."

That last provision was no longer entirely facetious. The margins of their books had become busy with correspondence. A volume concerning another version of their own story had once opened, briefly, upon a room instead of a page. Darcy had shut it at once, then received a sharply worded marginal note asking him to knock next time. Since then the correspondents had worked out a convention: written invitations first, an agreed hour, and a page opened by both parties. No answer meant a closed book.

Who had made the first breach in their reality remained a mystery. Elizabeth would have liked an answer. Meanwhile, she insisted upon knowing how a guest was to go home. Even an agreeable visitor ought not to be stranded in the library.

"We can decide after luncheon," Darcy said.

The tray had meanwhile become stranded beyond four hundred pages of Wickham. He lifted the stack; Elizabeth retrieved the teapot; a loose sheet floated into the hearth and had to be rescued before their hospitality acquired an unfortunate literary verdict.

"A small table in a very large house," she observed, "and we have contrived to overcrowd it."

Darcy carried the unwanted manuscripts to a drawer. The drawer would not close. He removed half, looked at the quantity remaining, and rang for a box.

When the table was clear, Elizabeth brought their cups together. They discussed Charlotte's next visit, then disagreed over which path to take after luncheon. Darcy preferred the sheltered walk; Elizabeth wanted to see whether the stream had risen. They compromised by taking the stream path with sensible boots.

At the door Darcy offered his arm. Elizabeth took it, and left the proposed gathering to wait upon the condition of the stream.