Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of.

`You had better go on,' said she.

He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, `the pianoforte! Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed! - I cannot comprehend a man's wishing to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument's coming if she could.'

After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing.

`I perfectly agree with you, sir,' - was then his remark. `You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.' And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, he made a fuller pause to say, `This is very bad. - He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily. - She must have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she should have been in such a state of punishment.'

Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving pain - no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.

`There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons,' was his next observation. - `His feelings are natural. - What! actually resolve to break with him entirely! - She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each - she dissolved it. - What a view this gives of her sense of his behaviour! - Well, he must be a most extraordinary - '

`Nay, nay, read on. - You will find how very much he suffers.'

`I hope he does,' replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. ```Smallridge!'' - What does this mean? What is all this?'

`She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children - a dear friend of Mrs. Elton's - a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?'

`Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read - not even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man writes!'

`I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.'

`Well, there is feeling here. - He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill. - Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of her. ``Dearer, much dearer than ever.'' I hope he may long continue to feel all the value of such a reconciliation. - He is a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands. - ``Happier than I deserve.'' Come, he knows himself there. ``Miss Woodhouse calls me the child of good fortune.'' - Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they? - And a fine ending - and there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it?'