m,
and attributes the favour which he found in Miss Woodhouse's eyes to a
lurking affection on her own part. This at length encourages him to a
presumptuous declaration of his sentiments; upon receiving a repulse, he
looks abroad elsewhere, and enriches the Highbury society by uniting
himself to a dashing young woman with as many thousands as are usually
called ten, and a corresponding quantity of presumption and ill
breeding.

While Emma is thus vainly engaged in forging wedlock-fetters for others,
her friends have views of the same kind upon her, in favour of a son of
Mr. Weston by a former marriage, who bears the name, lives under the
patronage, and is to inherit the fortune of a rich uncle. Unfortunately
Mr. Frank Churchill had already settled his affections on Miss Jane
Fairfax, a young lady of reduced fortune; but as this was a concealed
affair, Emma, when Mr. Churchill first appears on the stage, has some
thoughts of being in love with him herself; speedily, however,
recovering from that dangerous propensity, she is disposed to confer him
upon her deserted friend Harriet Smith. Harriet has in the interim,
fallen desperately in love with Mr. Knightley, the sturdy, advice-giving
bachelor; and, as all the village supposes Frank Churchill and Emma to
be attached to each other, there are cross purposes enough (were the
novel of a more romantic cast) for cutting half the men's throats and
breaking all the women's hearts. But at Highbury Cupid walks decorously,
and with good discretion, bearing his torch under a lanthorn, instead of
flourishing it around to set the house on fire. All these entanglements
bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations, and
dialogues at balls and parties of pleasure, in which the author displays
her peculiar powers of humour and knowledge of human life. The plot is
extricated with great simplicity. The aunt of Frank Churchill dies; his
uncle, no longer under her baneful influence, consents to his marriage
with Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightley and Emma are led, by this unexpected
incident, to discover that they had been in love with each other all
along. Mr. Woodhouse's objections to the marriage of his daughter are
overpowered by the fears of house-breakers, and the comfort which he
hopes to derive from having a stout son-in-law resident in the family;
and the facile affections of Harriet Smith are transferred, like a bank
bill by indorsation, to her former suitor, the honest far