if she was acting according to her principles, which call for wilfull blindness--as well as deaf! Of course, she does really see Mr. Collins's faults (she finds his company "irksome"), and as I said before, there is nothing really wrong with her ears. But she chooses to pretend that the faults she sees and hears in him do not exist.

Having lower expectations and hopes for marriage than Lizzy is not equivalent to "bringing a better hand to the table" IMHO. I think it's more like knowing your fellow card players are lousy at the game, so you are likely to win even with a mediocre hand. How much satisfaction is there in that? If happiness in marriage for Charlotte only consists in a "comfortable home" (despite many people's assertions, she has said nothing about hopes for motherhood), well she will probably attain that level of "happiness"--as long as her idea of "comfortable" can include giving over the best and most spacious rooms of the house to her husband and confining herself to a small drawing room that has no attractions for him, and having every aspect of her domestic activity scrutinized and criticized by Lady Catherine. With hopes, of course, of Longbourn someday supplying more comfort.