Jane is mending, which will never do. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 9 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Bennet arrives at Netherfield to confirm, with satisfaction, that her daughter is far too ill to be moved anywhere near home.

What follows is Elizabeth's private nightmare: her mother in full flow before the very audience she most needs to impress. Mrs. Bennet praises Bingley's sweetness, boasts of Jane's beauty and former admirers, and takes loud offense at an imagined slight to country society. Elizabeth blushes, deflects, changes the subject, and cannot stop any of it.

• Mrs. Bennet inspects the patient and finds her exactly ill enough: too unwell to travel, perfectly placed to stay where Mr. Bingley is.
• A skirmish over town versus country breaks out when Darcy observes that countr ...