Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 03
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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 03
Literature -- Collections
"Ah, my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but
after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different
creatures; you do not look like the same. Now, I cannot say that I think
you are any of you looking well at present."
"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those
little nervous headaches and palpitations which I am never entirely free
from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were rather
pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a little
more tired than usual from their journey and the happiness of coming. I
hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I assure you
Mr. Wingfield told me that he did not believe he had ever sent us off,
altogether, in such good case. I trust at least that you do not think
Mr. Knightley looking ill," turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety
toward her husband.
"Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley
very far from looking well."
"What is the matter, sir? Did you speak to me?" cried Mr. John
Knightley, hearing his own name.
"I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking
well; but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have
wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you
left home."
"My dear Isabella," exclaimed he hastily, "pray do not concern yourself
about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and
the children, and let me look as I choose."
"I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,"
cried Emma, "about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff
from Scotland to look after his new estate. But will it answer? Will not
the old prejudice be too strong?"
And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to
give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing worse
to hear than Isabella's kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane
Fairfax, though no great favorite with her in general, she was at that
moment very happy to assist in praising.
"That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!" said Mrs. John Knightley. "It is so
long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment
accidentally in town. What happiness it must be to her good old
grandmother and excellent aunt when she comes to visit them! I always
regret excessively, on dear Emma's account, that she cannot be more at
Highbury; but now their daughter is married I suppose Colonel and Mrs.
Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a
delightful companion for Emma."
Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added:--
"Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty
kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a
better companion than Harriet."
"I am most happy to hear it; but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so
very accomplished and superior, and exactly Emma's age."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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