Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/165

 not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma—was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her that he could stay no longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly after dinner to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery. He had found her agitated and low. Frank Churchill was a villain. He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill's character was not desperate. She was his own Emma by hand and word when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow."

Emma's one remaining piece of compunction must be for her unlucky little protégée, Harriet Smith; but even this difficulty is surprisingly soon smoothed out of her way. Harriet, while on a visit to Emma's sister, Mrs. John Knightley, in London, again comes across Robert Martin, and, as he has always been faithful to her, the result is easily guessed; although Emma, true to her mistaken estimates of character, is greatly amazed when the engagement is announced. She is pacified, however, and accepts Mr. Knightley's quiet opinion of the story. "You ought to know your friend best, but I should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be very determined against any young man who told her he loved her"; which is, of course, the precise truth.

The three marriages of the story take place within a very short time of each other, Harriet Smith's being the first; "and Mr. Elton was called on within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin to