Chapter 81Mr. and Mrs. John Hill were not held in Hartfield for long. The weather soon improved to the point where those who needed to move could move; and Mr. Lodge, who, as usual, had tried to persuade his daughter to stay behind with all her children, had to see the whole society break up and return to his laments about the fate of poor Bella – which poor Bella passed by her life with those she adored, full of merit, blind to her mistakes and always innocent, could have been a model for proper female happiness.
Exactly on the evening of the day they left, Mr. Alton brought a note from Mr. Alton to Mr. Lodge, a long, polite, solemn note in which he said, with Mr. Alton's best compliments, "that he planned to leave Highbury in the morning on the way to Bath; where, in accordance with the
