However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer.
Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their visit,as they returned,except what had particularly interested them both.The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed, except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention.They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit―of everything but himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's beginning the subject.
“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.”