Emma Read Online Free Page B

holiday of a tea-visit, and having formerly owed much to Mr Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside.
    These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to collect, and happy was she, for her father’s sake, in the power, though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of Mrs Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well, but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.
    As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day, a note was brought from Mrs Goddard, requesting in most respectful terms to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her—a most welcome request, for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty and nearness to her own age. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion, who hoped to gain a new confidant to alleviate the loss of the prior in Mrs Weston, when not available.
    Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, with no other influences, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her.
    She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features and a look of great sweetness, and before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.
    She was not struck by anything remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging—not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk—and yet so far from pushing, showing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of everything in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury and its connections. The acquaintances she had already formed were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though a very good sort of people, must be doing her harm.
    They were a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large farm of Mr Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell—very creditably, she believed—she knew Mr Knightley thought highly of them—but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect for her own entertainment. She would notice her, she would improve her, she would detach her from her bad acquaintances and introduce her into good society, she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking, highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure and powers.
    She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate. The supper-table, which always closed such parties, and for which she had been