“‘Dear me! I should not have thought it possible that you could forget what passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last times we ever met in it.... Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new pen-knife, and your recommending court-plaister? But, as you had none about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took mine out, and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left before he gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making a treasure of it; so I put it by, never to be used, and looked at it now and then as a great treat.’ “‘My dearest Harriet!’ cried Emma, putting her hands before her face, and jumping up, ... ‘And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake,’ ... and secretly she added to herself, ‘Lord bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I never was equal to this.’ “‘Here,’ resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, ‘here is something still more valuable,—I mean that _has been_ more valuable,—because this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister never did.’ “Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an old pencil, the part without any lead. “‘This was really his,’ said Harriet. ‘Do not you remember one morning? ... I forget exactly the day ... he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was about spruce beer ... and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out his pencil there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye upon it; and, as soon as I dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment.’... “‘My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in treasuring up these things?’ “‘Yes, simpleton as I was!—but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you know, to keep any remembrances after he was married. I knew it was—but had not resolution enough to part with them.’” This is pure comedy!