{{prxprp296.jpg}} || 296 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ||

conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without

having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied from what his

manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my

affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of

address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing than any

other man.'

'You are very cruel,' said her sister, 'you will not let me smile,

and are provoking me to it every moment.'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed!' l

'And how impossible in others!'

'But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more

than I acknowledge?'

'That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We

all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth

knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not

make me your confidante.'

1 [This sentence is here separated from the next in accordance with

a reference in a letter of Miss Austen's to the page of the first edition on

which it occurs. 'The greatest blunder in printing is in p. 220 v. 3,

where two sentences are made into one.' -- Ed.]

 [[296]]