"I am sure you can bring it about successfully. How well everything is going to-day! Some dreadful catastrophe is sure to happen soon."
"What else has gone well?"
"Why, Robert's getting on so excellently with Miss Crawford. She is such a thoroughly nice woman, and it is certain to do Robert good."
"I would not think too much about that, Lizzy. Robert gets on well with all nice women, and as to Miss Crawford, I should say she is accustomed to receiving a considerable amount of admiration."
"Nonsense! You shall not spoil my pleasure in it. Why should they not be friends and nothing more? I took care to do him a good turn too; I told Mrs. Grant the thing I could about him, namely, that he is not well off. I knew he would tell them himself, and make the most of it, in that disparaging way he has, as if it were a great blot on his character, or some serious personal defect. He has become so diffident the last few months that I have no patience with him! He does not value himself properly, and causes people to undervalue him."
"One cannot say that diffidence is a fault of Miss Crawford's other admirer, Sir Walter Elliot."
"No, the tiresome, dressed-up doll! She is so sensible, that I cannot understand her having those people for her friends."
"Perhaps she has no choice. Possibly the acquaintance was of their seeking; she may have made a mistake. Who knows? Even the wisest of us may sometimes be mistaken in our estimates of one another, may we not, Elizabeth?"