{{prhprp175.jpg}}

'Certainly not, at first; but they are very pleasing women

when you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with

her brother, and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if

we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her.'

Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced: their

behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please

in general; and with more quickness of observation and less

pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a judgment, too,

unassailed by any attention to herself, she was very little

disposed to approve them. They were, in fact, very fine

ladies; not deficient in good-humour when they were pleased,

nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but

proud and conceited. They were rather handsome; had been

educated in one of the first private seminaries in town; had a

fortune of twenty thousand pounds; were in the habit of

spending more than they ought, and of associating with people

of rank; and were, therefore, in every respect entitled to

think well of themselves and meanly of others. They were of

a respectable family in the north of England; a circum-

stance more deeply impressed on their memories than that

their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by

trade.

Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a

hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended

to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley

intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his

county; but, as he was now provided with a good house and

the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those

who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might

not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave

the next generation to purchase.

His sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of

his own; but though he was now established only as a tenant,

Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his

table; nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more

fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as

her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of

age two years when he was tempted, by an accidental recom-

mendation, to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it,

and into it, for half an hour; was pleased with the situation

 [175]