Austen Said:

"Here,"

"ended the worst of my state; for now I could at least put myself in the way of happiness; I could exert myself; I could do something. But to be waiting so long in inaction, and waiting only for evil, had been dreadful. Within the first five minutes I said, 'I will be at Bath on Wednesday,' and I was. Was it unpardonable to think it worth my while to come? and to arrive with some degree of hope? You were single. It was possible that you might retain the feelings of the past, as I did; and one encouragement happened to be mine. I could never doubt that you would be loved and sought by others, but I knew to a certainty that you had refused one man, at least, of better pretensions than myself; and I could not help often saying, 'Was this for me?'"

"To see you,"

"in the midst of those who could not be my well-wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling, and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what powerful supports would be his! Was it not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony? Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you, was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the indelible, immoveable impression of what persuasion had once done -- was it not all against me?"

"Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus,"

"but I could not. I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed, buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who had given me up, who had been influenced by any one rather than by me. I saw you with the very person who had guided you in that year of misery. I had no reason to believe her of less authority now. The force of habit was to be added."

"No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement to another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet, I was determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning, and I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."

"Not yet. But there are hopes of her being forgiven in time. I trust to being in charity with her soon. But I too have been thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?"

"Good God!"

"you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice. This is a recollection which ought to make me forgive every one sooner than myself. Six years of separation and suffering might have been spared. It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me. I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards. Like other great men under reverses,"

"I must endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

she should like it,

not bear it;

“How uncomfortable it is,"

“not to have a single acquaintance here!”

“What shall we do? The gentlemen and ladies at this table look as if they wondered why we came here — we seem forcing ourselves into their party.”

“I wish we had any — it would be somebody to go to.”

“Had not we better go away as it is? Here are no tea-things for us, you see.”

“No, indeed, it looks very nice. But, dear Mrs. Allen, are you sure there is nobody you know in all this multitude of people? I think you must know somebody.”

“Very agreeable indeed,”

“You need not give yourself that trouble, sir.”

“About a week, sir,”

Why should you be surprised, sir?”

“Never, sir.”

“Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.”

“Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.”

“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”

“Yes — I like it very well.”

“My journal!”

“Indeed I shall say no such thing.”

“If you please.”

“But, perhaps, I keep no journal.”

“I have sometimes thought,”

“whether ladies do write so much better letters than gentlemen! That is — I should not think the superiority was always on our side.”

“And what are they?”

“Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of disclaiming the compliment. You do not think too highly of us in that way.”

“How can you,”

“be so — "

“strange.”

he indulged himself a little too much with the foibles of others.

“I was not thinking of anything.”

“Well then, I will not.”

“How excessively like her brother Miss Morland is!”

her eldest brother had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of his own college, of the name of Thorpe;

he had spent the last week of the Christmas vacation with his family, near London.

He must be gone from Bath. Yet he had not mentioned that his stay would be so short!

“for she must confess herself very partial to the profession”

“My dearest creature, what can have made you so late? I have been waiting for you at least this age!”

“Have you, indeed! I am very sorry for it; but really I thought I was in very good time. It is but just one. I hope you have not been here long?”

“Oh! These ten ages at least. I am sure I have been here this half hour. But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of the room, and enjoy ourselves. I have an hundred things to say to you. In the first place, I was so afraid it would rain this morning, just as I wanted to set off; it looked very showery, and that would have thrown me into agonies! Do you know, I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in Milsom Street just now — very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons instead of green; I quite longed for it. But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with Udolpho?”