Besides the lovers, many diverting people lived in these homes of the gentry, quite as amusing as any of the peasants who were brought upon the stage by the older dramatists for our entertainment; perhaps more amusing, because of their self-sufficiency. These people seldom do anything that is peculiar, nor are they the objects of practical jokes, as were so many men and women in the earlier books; but they talk freely both at home and abroad about whatever is of interest to them. They seldom use stereotyped words or phrases, yet their conversation is a crystal from which the whole mental horizon of the speaker shines forth. When Mrs. Bennet learns that Netherfield Park has been let to a single gentleman of fortune, her first exclamation comes from the heart--"What a fine thing for our girls!" After Mr. Collins, upon whom Mr. Bennet's estate is entailed, has resolved to make all possible amends to his daughters by marrying one of them, and is making his famous proposal to Elizabeth, he says with solemn composure: "But, before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying--and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did." No wonder Elizabeth laughed at such a lover. Mr. Collins is the same type of man as Mr. Smith, whom Evelina meets at Snow Hill, but infinitely more ridiculous because he is an educated man of some attainments. Then there is Mr. Woodhouse, the father of Emma, with his constant solicitude for everybody's health and his fears that they may have indigestion. When his daughter and her family arrive from London, all well and hearty, he says by way of hospitality: "You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a basin of gruel." His friend Mrs. Bates is always voluble. She is describing Mr. Dixon's country seat in Ireland to Emma: "Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty--from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever heard about it from anybody else--but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them; of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland." One respects the mental power of a woman who could remember the main thread of her discourse amid so many digressions.