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This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good
natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very
much to the taste of every body, though single and though poor.
Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe,
if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely
to give away sixpence of it; and nobody is afraid of her: that is a
great charm."

"Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself
when you grow old?"

"If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great
many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be
more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty.
Woman's usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then
as they are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less,
I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work.
And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections,
which is in truth the great point of inferiority, the want of which
is really the great evil to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall
be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much,
to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability,
to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need.
There will be enough for every hope and every fear; and though my
attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas
of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews
and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me."

"Do you know Miss Bates's niece? That is, I know you must have
seen her a hundred times--but are you acquainted?"

"Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes
to Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out
of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should
ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together,
as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name
of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over;
her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she
does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair
of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month.
I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death."

They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics
were superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses
of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention
and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse.
She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and
their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary
virtue from those for whom education had done so little; entered into
their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance
with as much intelligence as good-will. In the present instance,
it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit;
and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice,

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