Page 1: 14 July, 1811 My dear brother, I know what I must say now will break your heart. I am inviting that dreadful scorn your eye so often casts on others, but never yet on me. It cannot be helped; I must dare it. Fitzwilliam, Wickham and I are to be married. I ask not for your permission, nor your blessing. I would invite the latter, but the former is nothing when weighed against the permission granted by my own heart. You have always been good and kind, and I have tried to be the daughter our dear late parents would want me to be. I left Pemberley and the countryside a meek and polite girl, but the life and noise of London has stirred in me a boldness you surely do not recognize. I did not