So here it is, Mr. Bennet finally faces himself and admits his shortfalls. The longed-for-peace in allowing Lydia to go to Brighton has become an uproar turning his household upside down. He has had to spend days running around trying to recover her now that she has run off with Wickham. When he returns (48). "Lizzy briefly [expresses] her sorrow for what he must have endured." and he replies, "Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it."

Lizzy is feeling really sorry for him, "You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth.

"You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me for once in my life feel how much I have been to blame." Whoa. Is Mr. Bennet finally getting a clue?

Oh…but wait a minute…"I am not afraid of being over powered by the impression (of feeling how much I am to blame). It will pass away soon enough." !!???!! (Record player scratch!) No he didn't….. Tell me he did not just say he knows very well that he isn't going to let this bother him too long.

Well, let's see, maybe there's still a chance for redemption after all. In chapter 50 "Mr. Bennet often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle…" Okay, so will we see a change now? Will he step up to the plate and be a real father?

Arrangements have been made (by Mr. Gardiner) for "Wickham…to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement (financially)….That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise; for his chief wish at present was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence.