Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly follies—­her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a subject.—­She could not enter on it.—­ Harriet was very seldom mentioned between them.  This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy, and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were declining.  She was aware herself, that, parting under any other circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on Isabella’s letters.  He might observe that it was so.  The pain of being obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.

Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but, since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet different from what she had known her before.—­ Isabella, to be sure, was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing with the children, it would not have escaped her.  Emma’s comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s being to stay longer; her fortnight was likely to be a month at least.  Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain till they could bring her back.

“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley.  “Here is his answer, if you like to see it.”

It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage.  Emma accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her friend was unmentioned.

“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley, “but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in her praise.  But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”

“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the letter.  “I honour his sincerity.  It is very plain that he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as you think me already.  Had he said any thing to bear a different construction, I should not have believed him.”

“My Emma, he means no such thing.  He only means—­”

“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,” interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile—­“much less, perhaps, than he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the subject.”