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unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers;

and Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which

gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes

when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.

After listening one morning to their effusions on this sub-

ject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed,--

'From all that I can collect by your manner of talking,

you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have

suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.'

Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but

Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her

admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him

in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning

to London.

'I am astonished, my dear,' said Mrs. Bennet, 'that you

should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I

wished to think slightingly of anybody's children, it should

not be of my own, however.'

'If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible

of it.'

'Yes; but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.'

'This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do

not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in

every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to

think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.'

'My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to

have the sense of their father and mother. When they get

to our age, I daresay they will not think about officers any

more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red

coat myself very well -- and, indeed, so I do still at my heart;

and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a

year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to

him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming

the other night at Sir William's in his regimentals.'

'Mamma,' cried Lydia, 'my aunt says that Colonel Forster

and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as

they did when they first came; she sees them now very often

standing in Clarke's library.'

Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the

footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Nether-

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