asing some one worth having; I ought not to have
attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.
I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this
disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body
else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I
could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer."

She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more
serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be,
and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and
all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of
future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the
acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding
eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some
time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the
conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.

To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary
gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of
spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,
and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough
to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of
softened pain and brighter hope.

Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone
to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to
depend on getting tolerably out of it.

It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in
love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to
disappoint him--that Harriet's nature should not be of that superior
sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there
could be no necessity for any body's knowing what had passed except the
three principals, and especially for her father's being given a moment's
uneasiness about it.

These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow
on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that
might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.

The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she
could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his
daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting
or receiving unpleasant and most u