Pagina 41 de 817

Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attention to her sister,

Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming

an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy

had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at

her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he

looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it

clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good

feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered

uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark

eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying.

Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure

of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her

figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting

that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was

caught by their easy playfulness.