............prev.....................next{{prxprp177.jpg}} || PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 177 ||
If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect
it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation
at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may be well
supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a
contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read
were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first
understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and
stedfasdy was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation
to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With
a strong prejudice against every thing he might say she began
his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read,
with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension,
and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might
bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before
her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she instantly
resolved to be false, and his account of the real, the worst objections
to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him
justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which
satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was
all pride and insolence.
But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr.
Wickham, when she read, with somewhat clearer attention, a
relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished
opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity
to his own history of himself, her feelings were yet more acutely
painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, appre-
hension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit
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