Jane Austen
the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel.
Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the
former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their
attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them in their hours of freedom.
Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of
cheering and heartening them up--though, as she never came without reporting some fresh
instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving
them more dispirited than she found them.
All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been
almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and
his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every
tradesman's family
annaabi.ee 
