{{prxprp012.jpg}} || 12 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ||

still better, and say nothing of the bad -- belongs to you alone. --

And so, you like this man's sisters too, do you I Their manners

are not equal to his.'

'Certainly not; at first. But they are very pleasing women

when you converse with them. Miss Binglcy 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

circumstance 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 an

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

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