VOLUME III
11. CHAPTER XI
(continued)
On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did,
after a little reflection, venture the following question.
"Might he not?--Is not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought,
into the state of your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--
he might have Mr. Martin's interest in view? But Harriet rejected
the suspicion with spirit.
"Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin.
I hope I know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be
suspected of it."
When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear
Miss Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope.
"I never should have presumed to think of it at first," said she,
"but for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let
his behaviour be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem
to feel that I may deserve him; and that if he does choose me,
it will not be any thing so very wonderful."
The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter
feelings, made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma's side,
to enable her to say on reply,
"Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is
the last man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman
the idea of his feeling for her more than he really does."
Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so satisfactory;
and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which at
that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her
father's footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was
too much agitated to encounter him. "She could not compose herself--
Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;"--with most ready
encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through
another door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous
burst of Emma's feelings: "Oh God! that I had never seen her!"
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