as in the Hampshire and
Winchester Editions:--

The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as
if he would have answered her hopes; but alas! the
ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss
Bennet was taking tea, and Elizabeth pouring out
the coffee.

This is an ingenious little misprint; for what Miss Bennet, who was one
of the hostesses, was doing was not _taking_ tea, of course, but
_making_ tea. The early editions and Bentley all read 'making.'

7. Chapter LIV, where Jane is trying to persuade Elizabeth that she is
in no danger of falling in love with Bingley again, Bentley's edition
reads:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister [i.e.
Elizabeth], 'you will not let me smile, and are
provoking me to it every moment.'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed! And
how impossible in others! But why should you wish
to persuade me that I feel more than I
acknowledge?'

'That is a question which I hardly know how to
answer.'

Now, if we turn to the first three editions, we find the passage broken
up as follows:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister, 'you will
not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every
moment.'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed! And
how impossible in others!'

'But why should you wish to persuade me that I
feel more than I acknowledge?'

'That is a question which I hardly know how to
answer.'

This is the only passage which we can correct on the authority of the
author herself. In a letter dated February 4, 1813, she says, referring
to the first edition of _Pride and Prejudice_: 'The greatest blunder in
printing is in p. 220, l. 3, where two sentences are made into one.'
Unfortunately, in trying to correct the mistake, Bentley's edition fell
into another, and Mr. Johnson was the first to break up the sentences
correctly. The passage should of course run:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister, 'you will
not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every
moment.'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed!'

'And how impossible in others!'

'But why should you wish to persuade me that I
feel more than I acknowledge?'

'That is a question w