Bennet

“ Bennet first heard the great news she sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable; and at first even Jane and her father were almost incredulous of the engagement, because they had seen practically nothing of the courtship. But in the end they were all convinced, and Mr. Bennet's decisive comment was: "I admire all my three sons-in-law highly. Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane's. If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure." ”

“ Francis Eversleigh will know, but none of the rest need know until I have left Surbiton."
"Where do you think of going?" inquired Bennet. "You must not go far away."
"I have a distant relative—a second cousin of my father's—in Yorkshire. She is an elderly lady, and has more than once asked me to pay her a visit. It is to her that I shall go. Indeed, there is no other to whom I could go; she is the only relative that I have in the world."
"Yorkshire is a long way off," said Bennet. ”

“ Bennet, like Mr. Watts, knew Ross rather well, and he wanted to be nice to Ross's daughter for various reasons. And last, but not least, her ingenuous admiration of his own attractive person amused Mr. Bennet more than he had been amused for a long while.
There was one last wild romp of a dance as an encore from the more good-natured members of the orchestra, while the other musicians packed their instruments, and then the First Real Party was only a thing to be remembered. ”

“ Bennet, no longer prefixed the Wonderful, had wormed itself into her brain without her having the slightest conception how it had got there, and now it presented itself to her, fully formed.
Mr. Bennet was very decidedly one of the very sort of men Miss Eliza had been so careful to warn her against!
He was one of those Awful Male Beings who were nice to girls to win their affections, only to deceive them!
No one in the world could have been nicer to any girl than Mr. Bennet had been to her! ”

“ But we'll make no allowances for you, Loutrelle!" Bennet was working himself up and getting back at Barney now for his discomfiture earlier in the evening.
Again he stopped, waiting for dispute; but again was disappointed. Barney was standing, as Bennet was also now on his feet.
"You make me sick, both of you," Bennet blurted in disgust, glancing from Barney to his cousin. "You're a fine one, thinking such things and saying such things about grandfather with a stranger; and you don't believe them; you know you don't; and you prove it." ”

“ BENNET. I am old-fashioned enough to think also of my duty to those I serve. If his lordship has done me the honour to marry my niece, the least I can is to see to it that she brings no discredit to his name. [Mrs. Bennet, followed by Jane Bennet, a severe-looking woman of middle age, has entered upon the words “the least I can do.” Bennet stays them a moment with his hand while he finishes. Then he turns to his wife.] You will be interested to find, Susannah, that the new Lady Bantock is not a stranger.
MRS. BENNET. Not a stranger! [She has reached a position from where she sees the girl.] ”

“ During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. ”

“ Bennet had always been kind and helpful; he was one of those who are cruel as the grave to those they call their enemies, but ruggedly faithful and well willing to their friends; and now, while Sir Oliver entered the next house to write, in his swift, exquisite penmanship, a memorandum of the last occurrences to his master, Sir Daniel Brackley, Bennet came up to his pupil to wish him God-speed upon his enterprise.
“Ye must go the long way about, Master Shelton,” he said; “round by the bridge, for your life! Keep a sure man fifty paces afore you, to draw shots ”

“ Bennet has entered. Newte is at fireplace. The old ladies have their backs to the door. Dr. Freemantle, who is pouring out tea, is the first to see him. He puts down the teapot, staring. The old ladies look round. A silence. Newte turns. Bennet is again the perfect butler. Yesterday would seem to have been wiped out of his memory.
BENNET. Good morning, Miss Wetherell. Good morning, Miss Edith. [To the two men] Good morning. I was not aware that breakfast was required to be any earlier than usual, or I should have had it ready. ”

“ All the past called out loudly not to venture on any road where Pole Bennet's feet had left a track, but three days later—hoping [146] that old Mr. Hill would hold on to life until his return—the troubled undertaker locked the door of his little coffin shop and fared forth to claim his heritage.
It is not often that a dying man leaves his earthly affairs so thoroughly provided for as did Napoleon Bennet, yet that astute showman reckoned without an important element of his problem when he thought to put the armless dwarf in his old playfellow's care. ”

“ They tell me Bennet's a nerve specialist, and I believe it."
She smiled wanly, but there was an eager championship in her response. "Oh, but he's wonderful! When he once begins to talk to you, you forget all about bein' mad at him. Seems like he sees right through your head to tell what's the matter with you."
The white uniform appeared and pronounced a name: "Mr. Kenwick." He rose and followed her through the door. ”

“ Bennet did not deny the probability of that. But it was all over now. Maybe not quite all over; for consequences sometimes hang on remarkably; but with a little patience and a little tolerance—Bennet thought—everything would come out clean and all right. The only requirement was to shut up "Eth" and that pick-up friend of hers, Barney Loutrelle.
"Oh, damn him!" Bennet suddenly sat upright in bed when he thought about Barney Loutrelle knowing as much as Ethel and going about loose up near St. Florentin. He had meant to mention Loutrelle to his father and discuss what was to be done about him ”

“ "You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?"
"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible."
Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. ”

“ Bennet, who as housekeeper for Gerald Douglass and his young sister Jacqueline, had good reason to value her reputation, Tessie (now Stacia) was engaged. Her especial duties were to be with Jacqueline, and Mrs. Bennet deplored to Mr. Gerald the fact that this young girl brought no reference.
"But she is so young, Margaret," he had replied. "I am sure we can supervise. And you know, Jack has been taking a lot of my time lately. Yet the doctor says her ultimate cure depends on her cheerful frame of mind, and she is getting along so beautifully. ”

“ Bennet, with an honourable disinterestedness that does him credit as a man, and with no lack of fatherly tenderness—which even goes so far as to hint at the rock on which his own happiness has been wrecked—continues to remonstrate with his favourite daughter. ”

“ I am not sufficiently acquainted with Miss Bennet to be able to form, or rather give an opinion as to her character; most young ladies of the present day are fast, and perhaps your friend is not an exception to the general rule. ”

“ For this long, forlorn row housed Bennett's General Stores. Bennett sold everything but tunnels.
Here was Neighbor's nearest errand. After a little delay he was shown into the great man's private office.
Bennett turned slowly in his revolving chair; a tall spare man, with a thin straggle of sandy hair and a sharp, narrow face, close-shaven; which might have been a pleasant face but for a pinched and cruel mouth, a mean, pinched nose, and a shifty eye. ”

“ Bennet was forming the hope that his dinner had dispelled her troubles, and she would now simply forget them. They had finished dessert and both were taking black coffee. Julia and her party either had not come to the hotel at all or were in another dining room; Bennet did not bother to look them up. Several acquaintances, on their way to and from other tables, had halted to say a few words to Ethel; and a woman in the last party to pass had asked Bennet:
"Tell me, you've not yet any positive word of the fate of Mrs. Oliver Cullen?"
"Nothing really positive," Bennet had replied. ”

“ Unless he quench his torch, and live
Henceforth a bachelor.
[Pg 47] WILLIAM BENNET.
William Bennet was born on the 29th September, 1802, in the parish of Glencairn, and county of Dumfries. He first wrote verses while apprenticed to a mechanic in a neighbouring parish. In his nineteenth year he published a volume of poems, which excited some attention, and led to his connexion with the newspaper press. He became a regular contributor to the Dumfries Courier, edited by the ingenious John M'Diarmid ”

“ Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. ”

“ Bennet's early youth she had made some pretense of being a piano-player, and she thought that she could now recall enough of her old knowledge to give Tilly the elementary instructions; but she was sadly disappointed; the working of the pedals was a hopeless mystery to her, and the action of the keys, so unlike that of piano-keys, threw her all "out," as she said. "I never mistrusted 't was so different from a piano," she cried. "It 's worse 'n a sewing-machine."
There was nothing to be done now but to let the child go to Provincetown to be taught. ”

“ An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and, consequently, unable to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; ”

“ Her commander, Captain Bennet, had the name of being a very amiable person, and he took a particular interest in the doctor's expedition, having been one of that gentleman's admirers for a long time. Bennet was rather a man of science than a man of war, which did not, however, prevent his vessel from carrying four carronades, that had never hurt any body, to be sure, but had performed the most pacific duty in the world.
The hold of the Resolute was so arranged as to find a stowing-place for the balloon. ”

“ Suiting action to words, he climbed up the small trunk of the air root, and swung over into the hollow where he had piled the reeds. Across the broad limb dangled a rope-like creeper, one end of which he had fastened to a branch higher up. He flung down the free end to Winthrope.
“Look lively, Pat,” he called. “The sun’s most gone, and the twilight don’t last all night in these parts. Get the line around Miss Leslie, and do what you can on a boost.” ”

“ Bennet demanded again.
"How long ago was he associated with grandfather?" Ethel returned. "Where was it?"
"Why, back in the old pine days," Bennet replied impatiently. "Old Jim was head sawyer of one of grandfather's mills in the lower peninsula before he went up across the Straits. Lost his fingers then; has only half his fingers on his right hand. Why?" ”

“ Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. ”

“ "Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness—if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders." ”

“ Bennett's side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything is all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first discern nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we perceive him sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him, while with the first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively the tip of his protruding tongue. ”

“ When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel. ”