‘To be sure,’cried she playfully.‘I know that is the feeling of you all.I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in-what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgement.Oh,Harriet may pick and choose.Were you,yourself,ever to marry,she is the very woman for you.And is she,at seventeen,just entering into life,just beginning to be known,to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives?No-pray,let her have time to look about her.’
‘I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,’said Mr Knightley presently,‘though I have kept my thoughts to myself;but I now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet.You will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty,and of what she has a claim to,that,in a little while,nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.Nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high.Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast,though she is a very pretty girl.Men of sense,whatever you may choose to say,do not want silly wives.Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity-and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in,when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed.Let her marry Robert Martin,and she is safe,respectable,and happy for ever;but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly,and teach her to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune,she may be a parlour boarder at Mrs Goddard's all the rest of her life-or,at least (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry somebody or other)till she grow desperate,and is glad to catch at the old writing-master's son.’
‘We think so very differently on this point,Mr Knightley,that there can be no use in canvassing it.We shall only be making each other more angry.But as to my letting her marry Robert Martin,it is impossible;she has refused him,and so decidedly,I think,as must prevent any second application.She must abide by the evil of having refused him,whatever it may be;and as to the refusal itself,I will not pretend to say that I might not influence her a little;but I assure you there was very little for me or for anybody to do.His appearance is so much against him,and his manner so bad,that if she ever were disposed to favour him,she is not now.I can imagine,that before she had seen anybody superior,she might tolerate him.He was the brother of her friends,and he took pains to please her;and altogether,having seen nobody better (that must have been his great assistant),she might not,while she was at Abbey Mill,find him disagreeable.But the case is altered now.She knows now what gentlemen are;and nothing but a gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.’
‘Nonsense,arrant nonsense,as ever was talked!’cried Mr Knightley.‘Robert Martin's manners have sense,sincerity,and good humour to recommend them;and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand.’
Emma made no answer,and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned,but was really feeling uncomfortable,and wanting him very much to be gone.She did not repent what she had done;she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be;but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgement in general,which made her dislike having it so loudly against her;and to have him sitting just opposite to her in angry state was very disagreeable.Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence,with only one attempt on Emma's side to talk of the weather,but he made no answer.He was thinking.The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words:
‘Robert Martin has no great loss-if he can but think so;and I hope it will not be long before he does.Your views for Harriet are best known to yourself;but as you make no secret of your love of match-making,it is fair to suppose that views,and plans,and projects you have;and as a friend I shall just hint to you,that if Elton is the man,I think it will be all labour in vain.’
Emma laughed and disclaimed.He continued:
‘Depend upon it,Elton will not do.Elton is a very good sort of man,and a very respectable vicar of Highbury,but not at all likely to make an imprudent match.He knows the value of a good income as well as anybody.Elton may talk sentimentally,but he will act rationally.He is as well acquainted with his own claims as you can be with Harriet's.He knows that he is a very handsome young man,and a great favourite wherever he goes;and from his general way of talking in unreserved moments,when there are only men present,I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away.I have heard him speak with great animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are intimate with,who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.’
‘I am very much obliged to you,’said Emma,laughing again.‘If I had set my heart on Mr Elton's marrying Harriet,it would have been very kind to open my eyes;but at present I only want to keep Harriet to myself.I have done with match-making,indeed.I could never hope to equal my own doings at Randalls.I shall leave off while I am well.’
‘Good morning to you,’said he,rising,and walking off abruptly.He was very much vexed.He felt the disappointment of the young man,and was mortified to have been the means of promoting it,by the sanction he had given;and the part which,he was persuaded,Emma had taken in the affair was provoking him exceedingly.
