This one falls into that category of it-couldn't-have-happened-to-more-deserving-people. I mean really, we so often hope for come-uppances, and here JA writes a detailed description for our voyeuristic reading pleasure. What makes it even better is we have one of the characters who is herself a masterful story-teller doing the story-telling.

The whole episode is so well done and so deliciously delectable that I almost feel obliged to thank the cook after savoring it.

I really like the appetizer JA serves up to start the whole thing off: I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of it, but it came into my head to ask him if there was any news. Yeah, sure you don't know how it came into your head. Nice teaser there. What wonderful dialog.

Then we get the main courses, and finish with a hint of the dessert to come: ... and the best of all is, that he is gone back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferrars is told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins left the house, for your sister was sure she would be in hysterics too. Here I think JA showed her talent by not giving us a detailed description. We have enough leading up to this to be able to fill in the rest by ourselves rather than suffer from a surfeit of salacious vindication.