"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in
general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are
good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of
a human being in your life."
"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always
speak what I think."
"I know you do; and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_
good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense
of others! Affectation of candour is common enough--one meets
with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or
design--to take the good of everybody's character and make it
still better, and say nothing of the bad--belongs to you alone.
And so you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners
are not equal to his."
"Certainly not--at first. But they are very pleasing women when
you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her
brother, and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall
not find a very charming neighbour in her."
Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced; their
behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in
general; and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy
of temper than her sister, and with a judgement too unassailed by
any attention to herself, she was very little disposed to approve
them. They were in fact very fine ladies; not deficient in good
humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of making
themselves agreeable when they chose it, but proud and
conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in
one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of
twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more
than they ought, and of associating with people of rank, and
were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of
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