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should not occur again, if he would resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his
young cousin no ill will, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another
table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared for backgammon.
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Chapter 15
MR. COLLINS was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by
education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and
miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms,
without forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had
given him originally great humility of manner, but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit
of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A
fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was
vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness,
mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his rights as a rector,
made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.
Having now a good house and very sufficient income he intended to marry; and in seeking a
reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to chuse one of the
daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This
was his plan of amends of atonement for inheriting their father's estate; and he thought it an excellent
one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part.
His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face confirmed his views, and established
all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority; and for the first evening she was his settled choice.
The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a quarter of an hour's tête-à-tête with Mrs. Bennet
before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal
of his hopes, that a mistress for it might be found at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very
complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. "As to
her younger daughters she could not take upon her to say she could not positively answer but she
did not know of any prepossession; her eldest daughter, she must just mention she felt it incumbent
on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged."
Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth and it was soon done done while Mrs. Bennet
was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course.
Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have two daughters married; and the
man whom she could not bear to speak of the day before was now high in her good graces.
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Lydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister except Mary agreed to go with
her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid
of him, and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast, and there
he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to
Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such doings discomposed Mr.
Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though
prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was
used to be free from them there; his civility, therefore, was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his
daughters in their walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was
extremely well pleased to close his large book, and go.
In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they
entered Meryton. The attention of the younger ones was then no longer gained by him . Their eyes were
immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet
indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recal them.
But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom they had never seen before, of
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