For a long time now I have looked back upon my childhood and girlhood at Longbourn as the happiest years of my life; we were so close, so merry, so secure. Because of the last, that security, we forgave Mama her idiocies and Papa his sarcastic attitude. But Jane and I shone the brightest, and were well aware of it. The Bennet sisters were layered: Jane and I considered the most beautiful and promising; Kitty and Lydia empty-headed jesters; and Mary - the middle child - neither one thing nor the other. I can see shades of that Mary in this one; she is still a merciless critic of frailties, still contemptuous of material things. But oh how she has changed!