sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.”
Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s attention to her sister, Elizabeth

was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some

interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely

allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the

ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no

sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had

hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered

uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To

this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had

detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry

in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and

pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those

of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of

this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made

himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough

to dance with.
He began to wish to know more of her; and, as a step towards conversing

with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so

drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas’s, where a large party were

assembled.
“What does Mr. Darcy mean,” said she to Charlotte, “by listening to my

conversation with Colonel Forster?”
“That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer.”
“But if he does it any more, I shall certainly let him know that I see

what he is about. He has a very{31} satirical eye, and if I do not begin by

being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.”

[Image unavailable.]
“The entreaties of several” [Copyright 1894 by George

Allen.]

On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have

any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such