Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/369

 'So Emma,’ said he, ‘ you are quite a stranger at home. It must seem odd cnough for you to be here, A pretty piece of work your Aunt Turner has made of it! By heaven! A woman should never be trusted with money. I always said she ought to have settled something on you, as soon as her husband died.’

'But that would have been trusting me with money,’ replied Emma, ‘and I am a woman too.’

‘It might have been secured to your future use, without your having any power over it now. What a blow it must have been upon you! To find yourself,. instead of heiress of 8,000l. or 9,000l, sent back a weight upon your family, without a sixpence. I hope the old woman will smart for it.

‘Do not speak disrespectfully of her ; she was very good to me, and if she has made an imprudent choice, she will suffer more from it herself than I can possibly do.’

'I do not mean to distress you, but you know everybody must think her an old fool. I thought Turner had been reckoned an extraordinarily sensible, clever man. How the devil came he to make such a will?’

‘My uncle's sense is not at all impeached in my opinion by his attachment to my aunt, She had been an excellent wife to him. The most liberal and enlightened minds arc always the most confiding, The event has been unfortunate, but my uncle’s memory is, if possible, endeared to me by such a proof of tender respect for my aunt.’