Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/147

 figure, look, aud situation in life seem to allow it, but if any young man were to set about copying him he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a model. Mr. Elton is goodhumoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us, Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are softer than they used to be. If he means anything, it must be to please you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?'

She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr. Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable."

Emma is persuaded that a very little encouragement will bring Mr. Elton forward as Harriet's declared suitor, and, under this belief, she throws the two together in every possible way at Hartfield. Having further convinced herself that Mr. Elton's pretty speeches, which would suit every woman equally well, are solely intended for Harriet through her, she receives them all with the utmost graciousness, quite unconscious of the presumptuous hopes for himself which he builds upon her manner to him. She begins a portrait of Harriet, which, she trusts, may some day be a wedding present to Mr. Elton, and her eyes are not opened to his real views even by his remarks upon the picture when finished.

Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she wanted,' observed Mrs. Weston to him