"I wish, Elizabeth, you had not made a point of my going to this ball; I wish you were going instead of me. Your pleasure would be greater than mine. I am a stranger here, and know nobody but the Edwards; my enjoyment, therefore, must be very doubtful. Yours, among all your acquaintances, would be certain. It is not too late to change. Very little apology would be requisite to the Edwards, who must be more glad of your company than of mine; and I should most readily return to my father, and should not be at all afraid to drive this quiet old creature home. Your clothes I would undertake to find means of sending to you." "My dearest Emma," cried Elizabeth, warmly. "Do you think I would do such a thing? Not for the universe! But I shall never forget your good-nature in proposing it. You must have a sweet temper indeed! I never met anything like it! And would you really give up the ball that I might be able to go to it? Believe me, Emma, I am not so selfish as that comes to. No; though I am nine years older than you are, I would not be the means of keeping you from being seen. You are very pretty, and it would be very hard that you should not have as fair a chance as we have all had to make your fortune. No, Emma; whoever stays at home this winter, it shan't be you. I am sure I should never have forgiven the person who kept me from a ball at nineteen." Emma expressed her gratitude, and for a few minutes they jogged on in silence. Elizabeth first spoke-- "You will take notice who Mary Edwards dances with?" "I will remember her partners, if I can; but you know they will be all strangers to me." "Only observe whether she dances with Captain Hunter more than once--I have my fears in that quarter. Not that her father or mother like officers; but if she does, you know, it is all over with poor Sam. And I have promised to write him word who she dances with." "Is Sam attached to Miss Edwards?" "Did not you know _that_?" "How should I know it? How should I know in Shropshire what is passing of that nature in Surrey? It is not likely that circumstances of such delicacy should have made any part of the scanty communication which passed between you and me for the last fourteen years." "I wonder I never mentioned it when I wrote. Since you have been at home, I have been so busy with my poor father, and our great wash, that I have had no leisure to tell you anything; but, indeed, I concluded you knew it all. He has been very much in love with her these two years, and it is a great disappointment to him that he cannot always get away to our balls; but Mr. Curtis won't often spare him, and just now it is a sickly time at Guildford." "Do you suppose Miss Edwards inclined to like him?" "I am afraid not; you know, she is an only child, and will have at least ten thousand pounds." "But, still, she may like our brother."