#the gardiners

Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they now felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these newly-born notions were passing in their heads

The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece, directed their observation towards each with an earnest, though guarded, inquiry; and they soon drew from those inquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady’s sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough.

Through them I could see another way of being

"But Elizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world!"

These are her thoughts when she lets her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, take her to Pemberly, Mr Darcy's home in Derbyshire, under the assumption that he wouldn't be there, only to have him arrive just as she's leaving. Mind you, this is after she savagely rejected him with the "you are the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry" line. Brutal. Despite that, he's polite and kind, but she's stuck in her head, so embarrassed about the fact that she was even there in the first place, and what he must think. Her train of thought wouldn't be anything other than painfully relatable except for the very last line of the book. Which is:

"With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them."

I just think the idea that you can go through something that you consider the worst thing to ever happen to you, the most embarrassing thing you have ever done, and later have the perspective to realize that had to happen in order for you to get something better. Okay yeah, if she had never let her aunt and uncle take her to Derbyshire, she would have avoided "the most unfortunate and ill-judged thing in the world". I'm sure she would have seriously appreciated short-term, but I think looking back on it, she'd willingly do it over again if it meant getting to marry the man she loves.