Weston's parting question.

"Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me
intelligence of the letter as soon as possible."

Mrs. Weston's communications furnished Emma with more food for
unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her
sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted
not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the
envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.
Had she followed Mr. Knightley's known wishes, in paying that attention
to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her
better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured
to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all
probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her
now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as
an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what
was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;
that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax's confidence on this
important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as
she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the
abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she
had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so
unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a
subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane's feelings, by the
levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill's. Of all the sources of evil
surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded
that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a
perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without
her having stabbed Jane Fairfax's peace in a thousand instances; and on
Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no
more.

The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.
The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and
nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was
despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights
the longer visible.

The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably
comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side, and by
exertions which had never cost her