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Prologue

IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY acknowledged that a thirty-so career and fabulous hairdo h and clever enough, was certainly thought to have little to distress her There were no boyfriends, and if they caular streas, wasn’t it?

But Jane had a secret By day, she bustled and luncheoned and e-mailed and over-times and just-in-timed, but sone on her hand-hts, turned on her nine-inch television, and acknowledged as

Sometimes, she watched Pride and Prejudice

You know, the BBC double DVD version, starring Colin Firth as the delicious Mr Darcy and that colish actress as the Elizabeth Bennet we had i Jane watched and rewatched the part where Elizabeth and Mr Darcy look at each other over the piano, and there’s that zing, and her face softens, and he sht of her, and his eyes are glistening so that you’d aled, her skin chilled, and she claut with a bowl of soht she would dreaentleh at herself and toy with the idea of hauling those DVDs and all her Austen books to the second-hand store

Of course, she never did

That pesky movie version was the culprit Sure Jane had first read Pride and Prejudice when she was sixteen, read it a dozen times since, and read other Austen novels at least twice, except Northanger Abbey (of course) But it wasn’t until the BBC out a face on the story that those gentleination and into her nonfiction hopes Stripped of Austen’s funny, insightful, biting narrator, the movie became a pure ro, bite-your-hand roht into Jane’s soul andShe really didn’t want to talk about it So let’s o

JANE’S MOTHER, SHIRLEY, CAME TO visit and brought along Great-Aunt Carolyn It was an aard gathering, and in the lapses of conversation, Jane could hear dead leaves crack as they hit her apart them alive seemed beyond her skills

"Really, Jane, I don’t kno you survive here," said Shirley, picking the brittle leaves froreen ones "We had a near-death experience in your coffin-of-an-elevator, didn’t we Carolyn, dear? I’m sure your poor aunt wants to relax, but it’s like a sauna in here and not a moment of silence--traffic, car alarms, sirens nonstop Are you sure your s aren’t open?"

"It’s Manhattan, Mom That’s just how it is"

"Well, I don’t know about that" She took a scolding stance, hand on hip The sixty-year-old wood floor grunted beneath her feet "I just picked up Carolyn fro in her front room it was so blessedly quiet I could have sere in the country"

That’s because ht