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 88 scanty correspondence which passed between you and me for the last fourteen years.’ ‘I wonder I never mentioned it when I wrote. Since you have been at home, I have been so busy with my poor Father and our great wash that I have had no leisure to tell you anything; but indeed I concluded you knew it all. He has been very much in love with her these two years, and it is a great disappointment to him that he cannot always get away to our Balls; but Mr. Curtis won’t often spare him, and just now it is a sickly time at Guildford’ ‘Do you suppose Miss Edwardes inclined to like him?’ ‘I am afraid not. You know she is an only Child, and will have at least ten thousand pounds.’ ‘But still she may like our Brother.’ ’Oh! no. The Edwardeses look much higher. Her Father and Mother would never consent to it. Sam is only a Surgeon, you know. Sometimes I think she does like him. But Mary Edwardes is rather prim and reserved; I do not always know what she would be at.’ ‘Unless Sam feels on sure grounds with the Lady herself, it seems a pity to me that he should be encouraged to think of her at all.’ ‘A young Man must think of somebody,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and why should not he be as lucky as Robert, who has got a good wife and six thousand pounds?’ ‘We must not all expect to be individually lucky,’ replied Emma. ‘The Luck of one member of a Family is Luck to all.’ ‘Mine is all to come, I am sure,’ said Elizabeth, giving another sigh to the remembrance of Purvis. ‘I have been unlucky enough, and I cannot say much for you, as my Aunt married again so foolishly. Well, you will have a good Ball, I dare say. The next turning will bring us to the Turnpike. You may see the Church Tower over the hedge, and the White Hart is close by it. I shall long to know what you think of Tom Musgrave.’ Such were the last audible sounds of Miss Watson’s voice, before they passed through the Turnpike