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appearances of the next few days.

The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after
Mr. Elton's return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common
sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences
of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet's feelings, they were
visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment
as her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly
satisfied of Mr. Martin's being no otherwise remembered, than as
he furnished a contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.

Her views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal
of useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than
a few first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow.
It was much easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let
her imagination range and work at Harriet's fortune, than to be
labouring to enlarge her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts;
and the only literary pursuit which engaged Harriet at present,
the only mental provision she was making for the evening of life,
was the collecting and transcribing all the riddles of every sort
that she could meet with, into a thin quarto of hot-pressed paper,
made up by her friend, and ornamented with ciphers and trophies.

In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale
are not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard's,
had written out at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken
the first hint of it from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse's help,
to get a great many more. Emma assisted with her invention,
memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote a very pretty hand,
it was likely to be an arrangement of the first order, in form
as well as quantity.

Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls,
and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in.
"So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he
wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time."
And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid."

His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject,
did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind;
but he had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about
so much, something, he thought, might come from that quarter.

It was by no means his daughter's wish that the intellects of
Highbury in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton
was the only one whose assistance she asked. He was invited
to contribute any really good enigmas, charades, or conundrums
that he might recollect; and she had the pleasure of seeing him
most intently at work with his recollections; and at the same time,
as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that nothing ungallant,
nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the sex should pass
his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest puzzles;
and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled,

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