VOLUME III
11. CHAPTER XI
(continued)
Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the
same few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had
never blessed her before. How improperly had she been acting
by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational,
how unfeeling had been her conduct! What blindness, what madness,
had led her on! It struck her with dreadful force, and she
was ready to give it every bad name in the world. Some portion
of respect for herself, however, in spite of all these demerits--
some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense of justice
by Harriet--(there would be no need of compassion to the girl
who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required
that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,)
gave Emma the resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness,
with even apparent kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit
that the utmost extent of Harriet's hopes should be enquired into;
and Harriet had done nothing to forfeit the regard and interest
which had been so voluntarily formed and maintained--or to deserve
to be slighted by the person, whose counsels had never led her right.--
Rousing from reflection, therefore, and subduing her emotion,
she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more inviting accent, renewed
the conversation; for as to the subject which had first introduced it,
the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was quite sunk and lost.--
Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and themselves.
Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad
to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge,
and such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation,
to give the history of her hopes with great, though trembling
delight.--Emma's tremblings as she asked, and as she listened,
were better concealed than Harriet's, but they were not less.
Her voice was not unsteady; but her mind was in all the perturbation
that such a development of self, such a burst of threatening evil,
such a confusion of sudden and perplexing emotions, must create.--
She listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward
patience, to Harriet's detail.--Methodical, or well arranged,
or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be;
but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and
tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--
especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory
brought in favour of Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet.
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