loo-table, however, did not appear. Mr. Darcy was writing, and
Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the progress of his
letter and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to
his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and Mrs.
Hurst was observing their game.

Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently
amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his
companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady, either on
his handwriting, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length
of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises
were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in
union with her opinion of each.

"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!"

He made no answer.

"You write uncommonly fast."

"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly."

"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the
course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should
think them!"

"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours."

"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her."

"I have already told her so once, by your desire."

"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you.
I mend pens remarkably well."

"Thank you--but I always mend my own."

"How can you contrive to write so even?"

He was silent.

"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on
the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with
her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely
superior to Miss Grantley's."

"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?
At present I have not room to do them justice."

"Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do
you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?"

"They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not
for me to determine."

"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter
with ease, cannot write ill."

"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline," cried
her brother, "because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies
too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?"

"My style of writing is very different from yours."

"Oh!" cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless
way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the
rest."

"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express
them--by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas
at all to my correspondents."

"Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm
reproof."

"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of
humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes
an indirect boast."

"And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of
modesty?"

"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in
writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a
rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not
estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of
doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the
possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of
the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that
if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield you should be
gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of
compliment to yourself--and yet what is there so very laudable
in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business
undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone
else?"

"Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all
the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon
my honour, I believe what I said of myself to be true, and I
believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume


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