Elizabeth is still shaken by Lady Catherine’s visit when her father calls her into the library to share something too funny to keep. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 57 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which Mr. Bennet reads aloud the one letter guaranteed to torture his favorite daughter, and never suspects a word of it is true.

Mr. Collins writes to congratulate the family on Jane’s engagement and to warn of a greater match rumored to follow: Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. He counsels caution, for Lady Catherine does not look on the match with a friendly eye. Mr. Bennet finds the whole idea exquisite, and shares the joke with the only person in the room unable to laugh at it.

• The letter also revisits Lydia in full Collins style: the Bennets ought to forgive the couple as Christians, but never to admit them in their sight, advice Mr. Bennet relishes for its charity.
• The centerpiece is her father’s delighted incredulity: Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at Elizabeth in his life!
• Elizabeth manufactures a smile and misses every cue to confide, while her father wonders that she is not diverted, since we live, he says, to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn.
• Underneath the comedy the real question tightens: Lady Catherine has clearly carried her report to more than one address, and Elizabeth cannot guess what her interference has done at the address that matters.