Emma | Page 5

Mr. Knightley will be so
kind as to meet him."
"With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time," said Mr. Knightley,
laughing, "and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better
thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish
and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it,
a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself."
CHAPTER II

Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family,
which for the last two or three generations had been rising into gentility
and property. He had received a good education, but, on succeeding
early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed for any of
the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged, and had
satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering into the
militia of his county, then embodied.
Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his
military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire
family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized,
except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were
full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend.
Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of
her fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the
family-estate--was not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took
place, to the infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who
threw her off with due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and
did not produce much happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found
more in it, for she had a husband whose warm heart and sweet temper
made him think every thing due to her in return for the great goodness
of being in love with him; but though she had one sort of spirit, she had
not the best. She had resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite
of her brother, but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at
that brother's unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her
former home. They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing
in comparison of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but
she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss
Churchill of Enscombe.
Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills,
as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst
of the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he
was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain.
From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy
had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his

mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs.
Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young
creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge
of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some
reluctance the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they
were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the
care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort
to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could.
A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and
engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in
London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern
which brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in
Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent; and between
useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or
twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time,
realised an easy competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little
estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to
marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live
according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition.
It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his
schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, it
had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could
purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to;
but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were
accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained
his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every
probability of greater happiness than in any yet