and respectability which he will probably never reach.” When she thought

of her mother, indeed, her confidence gave way a little; but she would

not allow that any objections there had material weight with Mr.

Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from

the want of importance in his friend’s connections than from their want

of sense; and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly

governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of

retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister.
The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned brought on a

headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to

her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her

cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins,

seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go, and as much

as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins

could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine’s being rather

displeased by her staying at home.{235}

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHEN they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as

much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the

examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her

being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any

revival of past occurrences,{236} or any communication of present suffering.

But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that

cheerfulness which had been used to characterize her style, and which,

proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself, and kindly

disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth

noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an

attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy’s

shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict gave her a