thought she could witness without trepidation.
From the entrance hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a

rapturous air, the fine proportion and finished ornaments, they followed

the servants through an antechamber to the room where Lady Catherine,

her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her Ladyship, with great

condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it

with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was

performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks

which he would have thought necessary.
In spite of having been at St. James’s, Sir William was so completely

awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage

enough to make a very{203} low bow, and take his seat without saying a word;

and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge

of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself

quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her

composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked

features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not

conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her

visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by

silence: but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as

marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to

Elizabeth’s mind; and, from the observation of the day altogether, she

believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he had represented.
When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment

she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the

daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria’s astonishment at her

being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any

likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly: her