Austen Said:

She understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings,

she acknowledged that

There was little sympathy to be spared for any body else.

Emma was sadly fearful that

An injunction of secresy had been among Mr. Weston's parting words.

Emma had promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.

In spite of her vexation,

she could not help

Her heart beat quick on hearing Harriet's footstep and voice;

she supposed,

cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room—

replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.

said Emma, still perplexed.

It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet's behaviour was so extremely odd, that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at her, quite unable to speak.

cried Harriet,

(blushing as she spoke)

said Emma,

cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished.

replied Emma, smiling;

turning away distressed.

cried Emma, after a moment's pause—

She could not speak another word.—Her voice was lost; and she sat down, waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.

Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma's.

she began,

cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely—

returned Emma, with forced calmness,

cried Harriet,

(with some elevation)

cried Emma,

She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.

she resumed,

Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at her in consternation, and hastily said,

replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully—

Emma's eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress.

She touched —she admitted —she acknowledged the whole truth.

Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed her before.

It struck her with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all these demerits— some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense of justice by Harriet—

gave Emma the resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent kindness.—

Rousing from reflection, therefore, and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was quite sunk and lost.—Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and themselves.

Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.—Emma's tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than Harriet's, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing emotions, must create.—She listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet's detail.—Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spirit— especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet.

Emma knew that

Emma knew

Harriet repeated expressions of approbation and praise from him—and

Emma felt them

She knew that

She knew that

Much that lived in Harriet's memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected, by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour's relation, and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without some degree of witness from Emma herself.—

(Harriet could not recall it without a blush.)

which was much more (as Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to her. The superior degree of confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her severe pain.

On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a little reflection, venture the following question. "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? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with spirit.