"Indeed, my dear, you must make yourself quite at home."
Mr. Bennet wished her a cordial good night, and Fanny heard the street door close before she had recovered her surprise at the change in the lady's manner.
It was a new and weary lesson that Fanny had to learn in the experience of Mrs. Bennet's temper. A vain, weak, and selfish woman, every fault had increased with an uninterrupted course of worldly prosperity, and she had no kindliness, no natural generosity to counteract her violent and over-bearing disposition.
It required all her husband's calm, and even severe, good sense to obtain any influence; but she feared him, she knew that it was in his power to curtail her enjoyments, and if selfishness gave way to petulance at first, the same selfishness soon controlled it.
She saw that her husband was justly displeased at her reception of the friendless and interesting girl whose situation would have called
