“By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield?
— I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party;
I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure.”
“If you mean Darcy,” cried her brother, “he may go to bed, if he chuses, before it begins
— but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing;
and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough I shall send round my cards.”
“I should like balls infinitely better,” she replied, “if they were carried on in a different manner;
but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting.
It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.”
“Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say,
but it would not be near so much like a ball.”