Mr. Bingley finally appears in person, and Meryton gets its first look at the man from Netherfield along with the friend he brought down with him. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 3 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: the Meryton assembly, the ball where the whole novel picks its sides.

Bingley proves everything the neighborhood hoped: handsome, easy, delighted with everybody, and quick to dance. Mr. Darcy proves the opposite. He arrives with ten thousand a year and the finest figure in the room, and within half an evening he has been voted the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world. Elizabeth Bennet, sitting out a dance for want of partners, overhears exactly what he thinks of her.

• Bingley dances every dance, singles out Jane Bennet for two of them, and leaves the assembly half in love with the prettiest ...