Relief arrives from Gracechurch Street. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 25 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which Mr. Collins finally goes home to Kent and the two most sensible adults in the novel arrive at Longbourn for Christmas.

Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Bennet’s brother, is a man greatly superior to his sister by nature and education, and his wife is an intelligent, elegant woman who is a great favourite with her elder nieces. Mrs. Gardiner distributes presents, describes the newest fashions, and then settles in to listen, which is how she comes to hear the whole sad business of Jane and Mr. Bingley told twice over in two very different registers.

• Mrs. Bennet’s version of the winter’s grievances features her own hard usage, two daughters nearly married and neither actually so, and no fault of hers anywhere in it.
• Elizabeth’s private version is more accurate, and Mrs. Gardiner, weighing Jane’s quiet looks, proposes a change of scene: London, and a stay in Gracechurch Street.
• Jane accepts happily, helped by the thought that Caroline lives in a different part of town and a morning’s visit need not mean meeting Mr. Bingley at all.
• Mrs. Gardiner, who once lived in Derbyshire, trades Pemberley recollections with Mr. Wickham, and remembers the late Mr. Darcy as one of the best men that ever breathed.