Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/336

 Musgrave, then; he is reckoned remarkably agreeable, I understand ?’

Miss Edwards answered hesitatingly, ‘Yes; he is very much liked by many people; but we are not very intimate.’

‘He is rich, is not he?’

‘He has about eight or nine hundred a-year, I believe. He came into possession of it when he was very young, and my father and mother think it has given him rather an unsettled turn. He is no favourite with them.’

The cold and empty appearance of the room, and the demure air of the small cluster of females at one end of it, began soon to give way. The inspiriting sound of other carriages was heard, and continual accessions of portly chaperones, and strings of smartly dressed girls, were received, with now and then a fresh gentleman straggler, who, if not enough in love to station himself near any fair creature, seemed glad to escape into the card-room.

Among the increasing number of military men, one now made his way to Miss Edwards with an air of empressment which decidedly said to her companion, ‘I am Captain Hunter;’ and Emma, who could not but watch her at such a moment, saw her looking rather distressed, but by no means displeased, and heard an engagement formed for the two first dances, which made her think her brother Sam’s a hopeless case.

Emma in the meanwhile was not unobserved or unadmired herself. A new face, and a very pretty