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did I think!--The two Abbots and I ran into the front room and
peeped through the blind when we heard he was going by, and Miss
Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look through herself;
however, she called me back presently, and let me look too,
which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he looked!
He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole."

"This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be,
must be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense;
and we are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they
are anxious to see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable
character gives every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you
settled in the same country and circle which they have chosen
to place you in, here it will be accomplished; and if their only
object is that you should, in the common phrase, be _well_ married,
here is the comfortable fortune, the respectable establishment,
the rise in the world which must satisfy them."

"Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you.
You understand every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever
as the other. This charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth,
I could never have made any thing like it."

"I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining
it yesterday."

"I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read."

"I never read one more to the purpose, certainly."

"It is as long again as almost all we have had before."

"I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour.
Such things in general cannot be too short."

Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory
comparisons were rising in her mind.

"It is one thing," said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--"to
have very good sense in a common way, like every body else,
and if there is any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter,
and say just what you must, in a short way; and another, to write
verses and charades like this."

Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin's prose.

"Such sweet lines!" continued Harriet--"these two last!--But
how shall I ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found
it out?--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what can we do about that?"

"Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening,
I dare say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense
or other will pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your
soft eyes shall chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me."

"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful
charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good."

"Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you
should not write it into your book."

"Oh! but those two lines are"--

--"The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private
enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know,
because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does

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