me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on

his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with

which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as

frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my

character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these.

How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs,

I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in

mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no further on the

subject.{440}”
“Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the

objections I have already urged I have still another to add. I am no

stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous

elopement. I know it all; that the young man’s marrying her was a

patched-up business, at the expense of your father and uncle. And is

such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, who is the son

of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of

what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”
“You can now have nothing further to say,” she resentfully answered.

“You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg to return to

the house.”
And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned

back. Her Ladyship was highly incensed.
“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew!

Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you

must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”
“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”
“You are then resolved to have him?”
“I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner,

which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without

reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the