to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be beautiful in her dark hair?”
“Very beautiful, indeed,” replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he gratefully burst out,
“How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent looks! – I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.”
The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an ac- count of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the infant’s appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish, but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been almost as uneasy as herself. – In ten minutes, however, the child had been per- fectly well again. This was her history; and particularly interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for thinking of send- ing for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done it. “She should al- ways send for Perry, if the child appeared in the slightest degree disor- dered, were it only for a moment. She could not be too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps, that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now, very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had seen it.”
Frank Churchill caught the name.
“Perry!” said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss Fair- fax’s eye. “My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr. Perry? – Has he been here this morning? – And how does he travel now? – Has he set up his carriage?”
Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really
hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.
“Such an extraordinary dream of mine!” he cried. “I can never think of it without laughing. – She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter, which sent me the report, is passing under her eye – that the whole blunder is spread before her – that she can attend to nothing else, though pretending to lis- ten to the others?”
Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile part- ly remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet steady voice,
“How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me! – They
will sometimes obtrude – but how you can court them!”
He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but Em- ma’s feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more sensible of Mr. Knightley’s high superiority of character. The happiness of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced.