Page 30 of Hard Home

"I only wondered," said Elizabeth pleasantly, "whether Miss de Bourgh has ever, in her whole life, been required to swear to anything."

Mr. Collins beamed, delighted to be able to give a full answer at last. "Now that is a very singular thing to have hit upon, and it does you credit, for I remarked it myself within a month of coming into the parish. She has not! Not at a christening, nor at a court, nor at her own presentation, which has never taken place. Lady Catherine is most particular upon the point — most particular. She has said to me more than once that her daughter's word is not to be spent upon trifles." He laughed comfortably. "Her Ladyship is a great economist in all things."

"Yes," said Elizabeth. "I begin to see that she is."

Jane looked at her sister with a small crease between her brows, having heard the tone if not the substance; and Mrs. Bennet said that eight hundred pounds was a shocking deal of money for a chimney-piece; and the subject went by.

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By tea-time however the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing room again, and when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies.

Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for every thing announced it to be from a circulating library) he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels.

Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons.

He had first taken up a small brown volume from the end of the shelf, and turned it over, and read the spine —A Discourse Upon the Binding Word— and put it down again rather quickly.

"That is mine," said Mary.

"It is not a proper book for a young lady," said Mr. Collins.

"Why?"

"Because," said Mr. Collins, with the first entirely unaffected sentence he had uttered since he entered the house, "there is a good deal in it that is true."

He opened Fordyce.

Lydia gaped at the first three pages, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with,

"Do you know, mama, that my uncle Philips talks of turning away Richard, and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town."

Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said,

"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess; — for certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin."

Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon.

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They played two games. Mr. Collins lost both, being a bad player and a worse loser, and bearing it with a great deal of resigned commentary.

Between the games Mr. Bennet said, in the idle voice of a man making conversation while the pieces are set up:

"You said something before dinner, cousin, about ground being shy. I did not perfectly attend to it."

"Ah! Her Ladyship's phrase, sir, and a very fine one."

"Very fine. And what did her Ladyship advise you to do about it?"

"To marry, sir," said Mr. Collins, moving a man, "and to marry into the blood that holds it, where such a thing can be managed; and I am happy to say that in the present instance her Ladyship considered the circumstances most unusually favorable, there being — as I took the liberty of informing her — no fewer than five."

"Five," said Mr. Bennet.

"Five, sir." Mr. Collins looked up, pleased to have been so well understood. "It is a great deal more than most gentlemen in my situation could hope for. Her Ladyship was pleased to call it a superfluity."

Mr. Bennet threw the dice.

"So it is," he said.