Pride and Prejudice (Clandestine Classics) Read Online Free PDF

appetite, but you must remember that four evenings have also been spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal.”
    “Yes, these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce, but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.”
    “Well,” said Charlotte, “I wish Jane success with all my heart, and if she were married to him tomorrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation, and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”
    “You make me laugh, Charlotte, but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.”
    Occupied in observing Mr Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty. After their initial eye contact, during which Elizabeth had been certain something passed between them, he had looked at her without admiration at the ball, and when they next met, he had looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing, and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware. To her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with. Elizabeth refused to think about his nightly visits in her dreams or the way her heart began to beat rapidly on the occasions during which they were in close proximity.
    Mr Darcy began to wish to know more of Elizabeth, and as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas’s, where a large party were assembled, that his sudden turnaround both surprised and confused Miss Bennet.
    “What does Mr Darcy mean,” said she to Charlotte, “by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster?”
    “That is a question which Mr Darcy only can answer.”
    “But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.”
    On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such a subject to him, which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him and said, “Did you not think, Mr Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton?”
    “With great energy, but it is always a subject which makes a lady energetic.”
    Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “You are severe on us, sir.”
    “It will be her turn soon to be teased,” said Miss Lucas. “I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows.”
    “You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!—always wanting me to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken a musical turn,