Austen Said:

"What news do you mean?"

"What did Mr. Weston tell you?"—

"Upon my word,"

"I begin to doubt my having any such talent. Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached to another woman at the very time that I was—tacitly, if not openly—encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?—I never had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank Churchill's having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly."

"I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,"

"but you do not mean to deny that there was a time— and not very distant either —when you gave me reason to understand that you did care about him?"

"Harriet!"

"What do you mean?—Good Heaven! what do you mean?—Mistake you!—Am I to suppose then?—"

"Harriet!"

"Let us understand each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you speaking of—Mr. Knightley?"

"Not quite,"

"for all that you then said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost assert that you had named Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the gipsies, was spoken of."

"My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment; that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely natural:—and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.—The impression of it is strong on my memory."

"Good God!"

"this has been a most unfortunate— — most deplorable mistake!—What is to be done?"

"Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley's returning your affection?"

"Might he not?—Is not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin —he might have Mr. Martin's interest in view?

"Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling for her more than he really does."

"Oh God! that I had never seen her!"

"On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so many months,"

"she was energetic. This was one of her expressions.

—and the quivering lip, Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart."

"Poor girl!"

"She thinks herself wrong, then, for having consented to a private engagement?"

"Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed to blame herself.

said she,

she continued,

"Poor girl!"

"She loves him then excessively, I suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her judgment."

"Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him."

"I am afraid,"

"that I must often have contributed to make her unhappy."

"On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural consequence of the evil she had involved herself in," she said, "was that of making her unreasonable. The consciousness of having done amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious and irritable to a degree that must have been— that had been —hard for him to bear.

said she,

She

then began to speak of you, and of the great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush which shewed me how it was all connected,

desired me,

She was sensible that you had never received any proper acknowledgment from herself."

"If I did not know her to be happy now,"

"which, in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she must be, I could not bear these thanks;—for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss Fairfax!—Well

this is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is very good— I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers."

"We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know, but I hope it will soon come,"

"Are you well, my Emma?"

"Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me intelligence of the letter as soon as possible."

"You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather surprize you."

"Oh! the best nature in the world— a wedding."

"How is it possible?"

"You probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have had your suspicions.—I have not forgotten that you once tried to give me a caution.—I wish I had attended to it—but—

I seem to have been doomed to blindness."

"You are very kind—but you are mistaken—and I must set you right.— I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier."