“I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty;and I particularly recollect your saying one night,after they had been dining at Netherfield,'she a beauty!―I should as soon call her mother a wit.'But afterwards she seemed to improve on you,and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.”
“How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning,Mr.Darcy,”she cried;“I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since the winter.She is grown so brown and coarse!Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.”
“Yes,”replied Darcy,who could contain himself no longer,“but that was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”
“For my own part,”she rejoined,“I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her.Her face is too thin;her complexion has no brilliancy;and her features are not at all handsome.Her nose wants character―there is nothing marked in its lines.Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes,which have sometimes been called so fine,I could never see anything extraordinary in them.They have a sharp,shrewish look,which I do not like at all;and in her air altogether,there is a self-sufficiency without fashion,which is intolerable.”