Austen Said:

"I will write directly."

"I am very much obliged to you, my dear Miss Crawford, for your kind congratulations, as far as they relate to my dearest William. The rest of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no farther notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of your note, I remain, dear Miss Crawford, etc., etc."

"Oh! I thank you; I have quite done, just done; it will be ready in a moment; I am very much obliged to you; if you will be so good as to give that to Miss Crawford."

"I am not cold, sir: I never sit here long at this time of year."

"No, sir."

"Oh! no, sir, I cannot, indeed I cannot go down to him. Mr. Crawford ought to know —he must know that: I told him enough yesterday to convince him; he spoke to me on this subject yesterday, and I told him without disguise that it was very disagreeable to me, and quite out of my power to return his good opinion."

"You are mistaken, sir,"

"you are quite mistaken. How could Mr. Crawford say such a thing? I gave him no encouragement yesterday. On the contrary, I told him, I cannot recollect my exact words, but I am sure I told him that I would not listen to him, that it was very unpleasant to me in every respect, and that I begged him never to talk to me in that manner again. I am sure I said as much as that and more; and I should have said still more, if I had been quite certain of his meaning anything seriously; but I did not like to be, I could not bear to be, imputing more than might be intended. I thought it might all pass for nothing with him."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"I— I cannot like him, sir, well enough to marry him."

"Yes,"

"Oh yes, sir! indeed I do. His attentions were always—what I did not like."

"Yes, sir."

"No, sir."

"But of his principles I have";

"I am very sorry,"

"I am very sorry indeed."

"If it were possible for me to do otherwise"

"but I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."

"I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!"

"Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!"

"If I had known you were going out, I should have got you just to go as far as my house with some orders for Nanny,"

"which I have since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry myself. I could very ill spare the time, and you might have saved me the trouble, if you would only have been so good as to let us know you were going out. It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether you had walked in the shrubbery or gone to my house."

"Oh!"

"that was very kind of you, Sir Thomas; but you do not know how dry the path is to my house. Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her fault. If she would but have let us know she was going out but there is a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before— she likes to go her own way to work; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little spirit of secrecy, and independence, and nonsense, about her, which I would advise her to get the better of."

"Stay, stay, Fanny! what are you about? where are you going? don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it is not you who are wanted; depend upon it, it is me"

"but you are so very eager to put yourself forward. What should Sir Thomas want you for? It is me, Baddeley, you mean; I am coming this moment. You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; Sir Thomas wants me, not Miss Price."

"Indeed, sir,"

"I am very sorry that Mr. Crawford should continue to know that it is paying me a very great compliment, and I feel most undeservedly honoured; but I am so perfectly convinced, and I have told him so, that it never will be in my power —"

"My dear aunt, you cannot wish me to do differently from what I have done, I am sure. You cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me, should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that."

"No,"

"No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to— even supposing —"

"Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford,"

"How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can—"

"Perhaps, sir,"

"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment."

"If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell."

"I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in talking of what I feel."

"Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This is such a comfort!"

"My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you."

"Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me."

"I mean,"

"that I think I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never shall return his regard."

"We are so totally unlike,"

"we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable."

"It is not merely in temper that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though, in that respect, I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly— I may speak of it now because it is all over— so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which —in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over."

"As a bystander,"

"perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous."

"Before the play, I am much mistaken if Julia did not think he was paying her attentions."