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turning towards her, 'these offences might have been over-

looked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession

of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any seri-

ous design. These bitter accusations might have been sup-

pressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles,

and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by

unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection,

by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.

Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were

natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the in-

feriority of your connections? To congratulate myself on

the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly

beneath my own?'

Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment;

yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when

she said,--

'You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the

mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than

as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in

refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike

manner.'

She saw him start at this; but he said nothing, and she

continued,--

'You could not have made me the offer of your hand in

any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.'

Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her

with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification.

She went on,--

'From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may

almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, im-

pressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your

conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others,

were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on

which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike;

and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were

the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed

on to marry.'

'You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly com-

prehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of

what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so

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