Austen Said:

Their situation was awkward enough; but hers

was still worse.

she was the happiest creature in the world.

“'Tis too much!”

“by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! why is not everybody as happy?"

“I must go instantly to my mother;”

“I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness!”

the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of suspense and vexation.

“And this,”

“is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!”

“With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say.”

all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself.

“I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me.”

“He has made me so happy,”

“by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible.”

“I suspected as much,”

“But how did he account for it?”

“It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other.”

“That is the most unforgiving speech,”

“that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard.”

“Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!”

“He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty.”

on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities.

he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world,

it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him.

“I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!”

“Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you!”

“If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.”

she was.

“How could I ever think her like her nephew?”

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.”

“If you believed it impossible to be true,”

“I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?”

“Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,”

“I never heard that it was.”

“I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.”

“Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”

“If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.”

“But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit.”

“Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.”

“Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?”

“These are heavy misfortunes,”

“But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.”

“That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.”

“In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.”

“Whatever my connections may be,”

“I am not.”

“I will make no promise of the kind.”

“And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”

“You can now have nothing further to say,”