Within a short walk of Longbourn lives the family the Bennets gossip with most freely. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 5 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which the Lucases and the Bennets hold a post-mortem on the assembly and the word “pride” gets its first full airing.

Sir William Lucas, knighted during his year as mayor and devoted ever since to the memory of St. James’s, presides genially while the ladies sift the evidence. Jane’s two dances with Bingley are confirmed as the triumph of the evening. Then the talk turns to Mr. Darcy, and everyone in the room has a theory about a man too proud to be spoken to.

• Charlotte Lucas, sensible, unromantic, and twenty-seven, makes her first appearance as Elizabeth’s intimate friend and the bearer of the ball’s best intelligence.
• Charlotte reports what she overheard: asked to name the prettiest woman in the room, Bingley answered that it was the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt.
• Elizabeth owns she could easily forgive Darcy’s pride if he had not mortified hers, while Charlotte argues that so fine a young man, with family, fortune, and everything in his favour, has a right to be proud.
• Mary contributes a book-fed lecture on the difference between pride and vanity, and a young Lucas declares that if he were as rich as Mr. Darcy he would keep a pack of foxhounds and drink a bottle of wine a day.