g in love with her when she is
thirteen."

"How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your
saucy looks--'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I
may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'--something which, you knew, I
did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad
feelings instead of one."

"What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches
in such affectionate remembrance."

"'Mr. Knightley.'--You always called me, 'Mr. Knightley;' and, from
habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want
you to call me something else, but I do not know what."

"I remember once calling you 'George,' in one of my amiable fits, about
ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as
you made no objection, I never did it again."

"And cannot you call me 'George' now?"

"Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I
will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by
calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise," she added presently, laughing
and blushing--"I will promise to call you once by your Christian name.
I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in
which N. takes M. for better, for worse."

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 busin