Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/325

 creature home. Your clothes I would undertake to find means of sending to you.’

‘My dearest Emma, cried Elizabeth, warmly, ‘do you think I would do such a thing? Not for the universe! But I shall never forget your goodnature in proposing it. You must have a sweet temper indeed ! I never met with anything like it! And would you really give up the ball that I might be able to go to it? Believe me, Emma, I am not so selfish as that comes to. No; though I am nine years older than you are, I would not be the means of keeping you from being scen. You arc very pretty, and it would be very hard that you should not have as fair a chance as we have all had to make your fortune. No, Emma, whoever stays at home this winter, it shan’t be you. I am sure I should never have forgiven the person who kept me from a ball at nineteen.’

Emma expressed her gratitude, and for a few minutes they jogged on in silence. Elizabeth first spoke :—

‘You will take notice who Mary Edwards dances with ?’

‘I will remember her partners, if I can; but you know they will be all strangers to me.’

‘Only observe whether she dances with Captain [unter more than once—I have my fears in that quarter. Not that her father or mother like officers ; but if she does, you know, it is all over with poor Sam. And Ihave promised te write him word who she dances with.’

‘Is Sam attached to Miss Edwards?’