Pride and Prejudice

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"Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will
make an offer to me."

Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied:

"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy,
they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of
_his_ mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned
the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would
be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of
inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to
the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his
tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of
propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest
hours he was destined for his cousin?"

"Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is