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A/N: The first line is verbatim Austen's opening line to P&P

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

This is exactly was Mrs. Tyler thought wrong with society, for the sake of her daughter, that a lady could not raise herself up among her peers without the leverage of a well-placed man.

And this is exactly what she repeated to her daughter on the day news was had that Tardishire Hall had recently been peopled by a man of no mean fortune.

"And he has not made himself known in town," Mrs. Tyler told her daughter, "nor to any of the families. Not even," she said, perching on what was by its sound sure to be a piece of salacious gossip, "to Captain Harkness, who I am sure will be quite vexed by the thoughtless designs of someone who calls himself a gentleman."

"Mamma," her daughter responded, "you punish the man too harshly. He has not inhabited the house since three days."

"And three days lost to us!"

The young lady sighed from her place at the window where she stood cutting the stems of flowers to arrange in vase.

"Three days," continued the lady, "that you remained unacquainted with him, though if he has not the civility in him to call on Captain Harkness, perhaps we are better off without the acquaintance altogether."

"Mamma, please, had I so recently taken so large a house I should think that I would not find my way from one end of it to the other within a fortnight, let alone three days."

But the lady would not have it. "Rose, my dear, but you should take so large a house if only you used those charms for something useful. You are not so beautiful that you should spend your years by windows arranging flowers."

The young Miss Tyler flushed and turned back to her task, the elder retreating to the garden in a fit of nerves.