Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/153

 Mrs. Robert Martin of Abbey Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you for ever.

There can be no better picture of a strong, decided nature bearing down a weak, vacillating one, yet entirely unconscious of its own tyranny. But Emma's triumph is of short duration. She has first to endure a sharp lecture from Mr. Knightley, who, from his position in the family as brother to her sister's husband, is on terms of full intimacy with her and her father, and is, moreover, "one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them." Robert Martin has confided his hopes to him, and, when they are crushed, Mr. Knightley is much grieved for him, and, guessing the part which Emma has had in the business, is much annoyed with her for dissuading Harriet from a safe and respectable connection. Emma has hardly tranquilized him, when, to her intense vexation, Mr. Elton declares himself her lover, and she then perceives the truth, to which she has been so blind, and sees how all her efforts for Harriet have been set down by him to dawning attachment on her own part. Of course Harriet has to be comforted and talked out of love—a far harder task than talking her into it; and even Mr. Elton's very speedy engagement to "a Miss Hawkins of Bath" has not all the success Emma has hoped for.

In the interval before his marriage, we are introduced to Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, who may be considered the secondary hero and heroine of the story. She is the grand-daughter of a Mr. Bates, a former clergyman of Highbury.

Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax have met at the house of a friend, and he having fallen violently in