“And you must be off this very morning?”

“Yes; my father is to join me here:  we shall walk back together, and I must be off immediately.  I am almost afraid that every moment will bring him.”

“Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss Bates?  How unlucky!  Miss Bates’s powerful, argumentative mind might have strengthened yours.”

“Yes—­I have called there; passing the door, I thought it better.  It was a right thing to do.  I went in for three minutes, and was detained by Miss Bates’s being absent.  She was out; and I felt it impossible not to wait till she came in.  She is a woman that one may, that one must laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight.  It was better to pay my visit, then”—­

He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.

“In short,” said he, “perhaps, Miss Woodhouse—­I think you can hardly be quite without suspicion”—­

He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts.  She hardly knew what to say.  It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely serious, which she did not wish.  Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,

“You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit, then”—­

He was silent.  She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner.  She heard him sigh.  It was natural for him to feel that he had cause to sigh.  He could not believe her to be encouraging him.  A few awkward moments passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said,

“It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to Hartfield.  My regard for Hartfield is most warm”—­

He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.—­ He was more in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might have ended, if his father had not made his appearance?  Mr. Woodhouse soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed.

A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial.  Mr. Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.

“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation.  I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you.  I have engaged Mrs. Weston to correspond with me.  She has been so kind as to promise it.  Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really interested in the absent!—­she will tell me every thing.  In her letters I shall be at dear Highbury again.”

A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill.  Short had been the notice—­short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too much.