Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-second chapter of Emma by Jane Austen

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Welcome to Bite at a Time Books, where we read you your favorite classics one Bite at a Time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

All of the links for our show are in the Show Notes.

Today we will be continuing Emma by Jane Austin.

Chapter Four Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations that a young person who either marries or dies is sure to be kindly spoken of.

A week had not passed since Ms.

Hawkins's name was first mentioned in Highbury before she was by some means or other discovered to have every recommendation of person and mind to be handsome, elegant, highly accomplished, and perfectly amiable.

And when Mr.

Elton himself arrived to triumph in his happy prospects, uncirculate the Fame of her merits, there was very little more for him to do than to tell her Christian name and say whose music she principally played.

Mr.

Elton returned a very happy man.

He had gone away rejected and mortified disappointed in a very sanguine hope.

After a series of what appeared to him strong encouragement in not only losing the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one, he had gone away deeply offended.

He came back engaged to another, and to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such circumstances.

What is gained always is to what is lost.

He came back gay and self satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse and defying.

Ms.

Smith.

The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune of so many thousands, as would always be called ten, a point of some dignity as well as some convenience, a story told well, he had not thrown himself away.

He had gained a woman of ten, £0 or thereabouts, and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity.

The first hour of introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice.

The history which he had to give Mrs.

Cole of the rise and progress of the affair was so glorious, the step so quick, from the accidental Recon trade to the dinner at Mr.

Green's and the party at Mrs.

Brown's, smiles and blushes rising in importance, with conscientiousness and agitation richly scattered.

The lady had been so easily impressed, so sweetly disposed, had, in short, to use a most intelligible phrase, been so ready to have him that vanity and prudence were equally contented.

He had caught both substance and shadow, both fortune and affection, and was just the happy man.

He ought to be, talking only of himself and his own concerns, expecting to be congratulated, ready to be laughed at, and with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young ladies of the place to whom, a few weeks ago he would have been more cautiously galliant.

The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for.

And when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation which a certain glance of Mrs.

Cole's did not seem to contradict, that when he next entered Highbury he would bring his bride during his present short stay.

Emma had barely seen him, but just enough to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression of his not being improved by the mixture of peak and pretension now spread over his air.

She was in fact beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all.

And his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings that, except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured of never seeing him again.

She wished him very well, but he gave her pain, and his welfare 20 miles off would administer most satisfaction.

The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must certainly be lessened by his marriage.

Many vain solicitudes would be prevented, many awkwardnesses smoothed by it.

A Mrs.

Elton would be an excuse for any change of intercourse.

Former intimacy might sink without remark.

It would be almost beginning their life of civil T again of the lady.

Individually, Emma thought, very little.

She was good enough for Mr.

Elton, no doubt accomplished enough for Highbury, handsome enough to look plain, probably by Harriet's side.

As to connection there, Emma was perfectly easy persuaded that, after all his own vaulted claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing on that article.

Truth seemed attainable.

What she was must be uncertain, but who she was might be found out.

And setting aside the ten £0, it did not appear that she was at all Harriet's superior.

She brought no name, no blood, no alliance.

Miss Hawkins was the youngest of two daughters of a Bristol merchant.

Of course he must be called, but as the whole of the profits of his Mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it was not unfair to guess.

The dignity of his line of trade had been very moderate, also part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath.

But Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol.

For though the father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle had remained in the law line, nothing more distinctly honorable was hazardous of him than that he was in the law line, and with him the daughter had lived.

Emma guest him to be the Drudge of some attorney and too stupid to rise, and all the grandeur of the connection seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was very well married to a gentleman in a great way near Bristol, who kept two carriages.

That was the windup of the history that was the glory of Miss.

Hawkins.

Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all?

She had talked her into love, but Alas, she was not so easily to be talked out of it.

The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet's mind was not to be talked away.

He might be superseded by another.

He certainly would.

Indeed, nothing could be clearer.

Even a Robert Martin would have been sufficient, but nothing else, she feared, would cure her.

Harriet was one of those who, having once begun, would always be in love, and now, poor girl, she was considerably worse from this reappearance of Mr.

Elton.

She was always having a glimpse of him somewhere or other.

Emma saw him only once, but two or three times every day.

Harriet was sure just to meet with him, or just to miss him, just to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, just to have something occurred to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favoring, warmth of surprise, and conjecture.

She was, Moreover, perpetually hearing about him for accepting when at Hartfield she was always among those who saw no fault in Mr.

Elton, and found nothing so interesting as the discussion of his concerns and every report.

Therefore every guess, all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and furniture, was continually in agitation around her.

Her regard was receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Ms.

Hawkins happiness, and continual observation of how much he seemed attached, his air as he walked by the house, the very fitting of his hat being all in proof of how much he was in love.

Had it been allowable entertainment?

Had there been no pain to her friend or reproach to herself in the waverings of Harriet's mind, Emma would have been amused by its variations.

Sometimes Mr.

Elton predominated, sometimes the Martins, and each was occasionally useful as a check to the other.

Mr.

Elton's engagement had been the cure of the agitation of meeting Mr.

Martin.

The unhappiness produced by the knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth Martins calling it Mrs.

Goddards.

A few days afterwards Harriet had not been at home, but a note had been prepared and left for her, written in the very style to touch a small mixture of reproach with a great deal of kindness.

Until Mr.

Elton himself appeared, she had been much occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return, and wishing to do more than she dared to confess.

But Mr.

Elton, in person had driven away all such cares while he stayed.

The Martins were forgotten, and on the very morning of his setting off for bath again, Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best for her to return Elizabeth Martin's visit.

How that visit was to be acknowledged what would be necessary and what might be safest had been a point of some doubtful consideration.

Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters when invited to come, would be in gratitude.

It must not be.

And yet the danger of a renewal of the acquaintance.

After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better than Harriet's returning the visit, but in a way that, if they had understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal acquaintance.

She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the Abbey Mill while she drove a little further, and called for her again so soon as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous recurrences of the past and give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen for the future.

She could think of nothing better.

And though there was something in it which her own heart could not approve, something of ingratitude, merely glossed over it must be done or what would become of Harriet thank you for joining Bite Out Of Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics, all of the links for our show are in the Show notes.

We are part of the Bike At A Time Books Productions Network.

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite At A Time books behind the Story Tuesdays wherever you listen to podcasts again.