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A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm. It soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion.Mrs.Bennet could hardly comprehend it.That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid,exceeded all she could believe possible.She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place.

Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife,if she survived him.He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect,Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her.The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place.