...was that Darcy despised only the ladies ;-) at the Meryton Assembly because he agreed to dine with the officers in ch.7 along with Bingley and Mr. Hurst. I was just pointing out that the militia officers were a separate category from the gentlemen who attended the Meryton Assembly, first, because the militia hadn't arrived yet in time for the M.A., and second, because the officers would *not* have been local men. We can't say how Darcy felt about militia officers in general, but I'm just saying we can't judge his feelings about the truly local inhabitants (male or female) by the way he acted towards the officers.