Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 27 (continued)

"But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death made her mistress of this fortune."

"No--what should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain MY affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?"

"But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event."

"A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If SHE does not object to it, why should WE?"

"HER not objecting does not justify HIM. It only shows her being deficient in something herself--sense or feeling."

"Well," cried Elizabeth, "have it as you choose. HE shall be mercenary, and SHE shall be foolish."

"No, Lizzy, that is what I do NOT choose. I should be sorry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire."

"Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all."

"Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment."

Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer.

"We have not determined how far it shall carry us," said Mrs. Gardiner, "but, perhaps, to the Lakes."