Emma | Page 8

the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an
establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of

refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant
morality, upon new principles and new systems--and where young
ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into
vanity--but a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a
reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price,
and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble
themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back
prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute--and very
deservedly; for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she
had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome
food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter
dressed their chilblains with her own hands. It was no wonder that a
train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church. She was a
plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth, and
now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and
having formerly owed much to Mr. Woodhouse's kindness, felt his
particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with
fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by
his fireside.
These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able
to collect; and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power;
though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the
absence of Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look
comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things
so well; but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that
every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had
fearfully anticipated.
As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the
present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in
most respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a
most welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom
Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on
account of her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the
evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.

Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had
placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody
had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of
parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.
She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and
was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young
ladies who had been at school there with her.
She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort
which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with
a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great
sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much
pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to
continue the acquaintance.
She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's
conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not
inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing,
shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly
grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by
the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had
been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve
encouragement. Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes,
and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior
society of Highbury and its connexions. The acquaintance she had
already formed were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had
just parted, though very good sort of people, must be doing her harm.
They were a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by
character, as renting a large farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the
parish of Donwell--very creditably, she believed--she knew Mr.
Knightley thought highly of them--but they must be coarse and
unpolished, and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only
a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect. She would
notice her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad
acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her
opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a
very kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her

leisure, and powers.
She was