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prevented the instrument's coming if she could."
After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's confession of having
behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing.
"I perfectly agree with you, sir,"--was then his remark. "You did behave very shamefully. You never
wrote a truer line." And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of their
disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, he made a
fuller pause to say, "This is very bad.--He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of
extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering
unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than
he could. He should have respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all
reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she had done a wrong thing in consenting
to the engagement, to bear that she should have been in such a state of punishment."
Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own
behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It
was all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, excepting one
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momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill
seemed to exist.
"There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons," was his next
observation.--"His feelings are natural.-- What! actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the
engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each-- she dissolved it.--What a view this gives
of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most extraordinary--"
"Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers."
"I hope he does," replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. "`Smallridge!'--What does
this mean? What is all this?"
"She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children-- a dear friend of Mrs. Elton's--a
neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?"
"Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page
more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man writes!"
"I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him."
"Well, there is feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have
no doubt of his being fond of her. `Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long continue to feel all
the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of
thousands.--`Happier than I deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. `Miss Woodhouse calls me the
child of good fortune.'--Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they?-- And a fine ending--and
there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it?"
"You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still you must, at least I hope you
must, think the better of him for it. I hope it does him some service with you."
"Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I
am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he is, beyond
a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being
constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the
steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk to you of something else. I have
another person's interest at present so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank
Churchill. Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work on one subject."
The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used
even to the woman he was in love with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the
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