At this age she was peculiarly susceptible of the
charms of beauty, grace, and moral excellence, when united in a person
of the other sex. She was imprudent, precisely because her own heart was
incapable of guile. She had never yet felt the sting of the poverty to
which she was condemned, and had not reflected on the insuperable
distance that custom has placed between the opulent and the poorer
classes of the community. She beheld Mr. Falkland, whenever he was
thrown in her way at any of the public meetings, with admiration; and,
without having precisely explained to herself the sentiments she
indulged, her eyes followed him through all the changes of the scene,
with eagerness and impatience. She did not see him, as the rest of the
assembly did, born to one of the amplest estates in the county, and
qualified to assert his title to the richest heiress. She thought only
of Falkland, with those advantages which were most intimately his own,
and of which no persecution of adverse fortune had the ability to
deprive him. In a word, she was transported when he was present; he was
the perpetual subject of her reveries and her dreams; but his image
excited no sentiment in her mind beyond that of the immediate pleasure
she took in his idea.

The notice Mr. Falkland bestowed on her in return, appeared sufficiently
encouraging to a mind so full of prepossession as that of Emily. There
was a particular complacency in his looks when directed towards her. He
had said in a company, of which one of the persons present repeated his
remarks to Miss Melville, that she appeared to him amiable and
interesting; that he felt for her unprovided and destitute situation;
and that he should have been glad to be more particular in his attention
to her, had he not been apprehensive of doing her a prejudice in the
suspicious mind of Mr. Tyrrel. All this she considered as the ravishing
condescension of a superior nature; for, if she did not recollect with
sufficient assiduity his gifts of fortune, she was, on the other hand,
filled with reverence for his unrivalled accomplishments. But, while she
thus seemingly disclaimed all comparison between Mr. Falkland and
herself, she probably cherished a confused feeling as if some event,
that was yet in the womb of fate, might reconcile things apparently the
most incompatible. Fraught with these prepossessions, the civilities
that had once or twice occurred in the bustle of a public circle, the
restoring her f