While the Bennets worry about Netherfield, Charlotte Lucas has been quietly working. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 22 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which Mr. Collins proposes for the second time in three days and this time gets the answer he expected the first time.

Charlotte’s scheme costs her nothing but a morning: she watches for Mr. Collins from an upper window, meets him by accident in the lane, and in as short a time as his long speeches allow, everything is settled between them. Sir William and Lady Lucas give joyful consent, already calculating how soon Longbourn must fall to the couple, and Charlotte herself is reasonably composed about the whole arrangement.

• Mr. Collins escapes Longbourn under cover of an early walk, and the family that thinks it is rid of him learns nothing until the deed is done.
• Charlotte states her terms without illusion: she asks only a comfortable home, and considering Mr. Collins’s character and connections, her chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.
• Breaking the news herself, she meets Elizabeth’s involuntary cry, “Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte, impossible!”, and holds her ground with steady countenance.
• Elizabeth congratulates her friend with effort and grieves in private, convinced Charlotte has disgraced herself and sunk in her esteem for the sake of an establishment.