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 obliged to keep his friend’s secret. He was also obliged to put an end to his visit, for Mrs. Edwards having ordered her carriage there was na time to be lost on Emma's side in preparing for it. Miss Edwards accompanied her home; but as it was dinner hour at Stanton stayed with them only a few minutes.

‘Now, my dear Emma,’ said Miss Watson, as soon as they were alone, ‘ you must talk to me all the rest of the day without stopping, or I shall not be satisfied ; but, first of all, Nanny shall bring in the dinner. Poor thing! You will not dine as you did yesterday, for we have nothing but some fried beef. How nice Mary Edwards looks in her new pelisse! And now tell me how you like them all, and what Iam to say to Sam. I have begun my letter; Jack Stokes is to call for it to-morrow, for his uncle is going within a mile of Guildford next day.’

Nanny brought in the dinner.

‘ We will wait upon ourselves,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘and then we shall lose no time, And so you would not come home with Tom Musgrave ?’

‘No, you had said so much against him that I could not wish either for the obligation or the intimacy which the use of his carriage must have created. I should not even have liked the appearance of it,’

‘You did very right; though I wonder at your forbearance, and [I do not think I could have done it myself. He seemed so cager to fetch you that I could not say no, though it rather went against me to be throwing you together, so well as I knew his tricks; but I did long to see you, and it was a clever