“And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?”

“How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains?

I felt a little uneasy — a little fearful of my sister’s happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that; they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia’s last letter she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other, many weeks.”

“But not before they went to Brighton?”