Pride and Prejudice (Clandestine Classics) by Jane Austen, Amy Armstrong Page B

before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with, “Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away Richard, and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton tomorrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr Denny comes back from town.”
    Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue. Even though Elizabeth herself had been somewhat relieved by the interruption, her discomfort at her sister’s lack of manners gave rise to her censure. But Mr Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said, “I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess, for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin.”
    Then turning to Mr Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon. Mr Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia’s interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would resume his book. But Mr Collins, after assuring them that he bore his young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another table with Mr Bennet, and prepared for backgammon. Elizabeth picked up a book of her own, and though she read through the pages, she scarcely took in a single word, too distracted by illicit thoughts of a carnal persuasion.
     
     

Chapter Fifteen

Mr Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society. The greatest part of his life had been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father, and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner, but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant, and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.
    Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry. In seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amends—of atonement—for inheriting their father’s estate, and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part.
    His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet’s lovely face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority, and for the first evening she was his settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration. In a quarter of an hour’s tête-à-tête with Mrs Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. “As to her younger daughters, she could not take upon her to say—she could not positively answer—but she did not know of any prepossession, her eldest daughter,