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Pride & Prejudice – page 54

JANE AUSTEN

After listening one morning to their effusions on this

subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed:

“From all that I can collect by your manner of

talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the

country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now

convinced.”

Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer;

but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to

express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope

of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going

the next morning to London.

“I am astonished, my dear,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that

you should be so ready to think your own children silly.

If I wished to think slightingly of anybody’s children, it

should not be of my own, however.”

“If my children are silly, I must hope to be always

sensible of it.”

“Yes but as it happens, they are all of them very

clever.”

“This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we

do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided

in every particular, but I must so far differ from you

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