Emma laughed and disclaimed.  “Depend upon it,” he continued, “Elton will not do.  Elton is a very good sort of a man, and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent match.  He is as well acquainted with his own claims as you can be with Harriet’s; and I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away.”

But despite this warning from Mr. George Knightley, despite a hint dropped by Mr. John Knightley, when he and his wife and children came to stop with the Woodhouses for Christmas—­a hint to the effect that his sister-in-law would do well to consider whether Mr. Elton was not in love with her—­Emma continued quite as ardent in her new friendship and in her hopes.

As to herself, she told Harriet that she was not going to be married at present, and had very little intention of ever marrying at all; though when Harriet reminded her of Miss Bates, who was the daughter of a former vicar of Highbury and lived in a very small way with her mother, a very old lady almost past everything but tea and quadrille, she confessed that if she thought she would ever be like Miss Bates, “so silly, so satisfied, so smiling, so prosing, so undistinguishing, so unfastidious, and so garrulous,” she would marry to-morrow.

But Mr. Elton was unaware of Emma having thought of making such a self-denying ordinance; and so one night when the Woodhouses and the Knightleys were returning home from a party at Randalls he took advantage of his being alone in a carriage with her to propose to her, seeming never to doubt his being accepted.  When he learned, however, for whom his hand had been destined, he became very indignant and contemptuous.

“Never, madam!” cried he.  “Never, I assure you! I think seriously of Miss Smith!  Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled.  I wish her extremely well; and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to—­Everybody has their level; but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss.  I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!  No, madam; my visits to Hatfield have been for yourself only.”

Needless to say, Emma refused him, and they parted on terms of mutually deep mortification.  Fortunately, the task of enlightening Harriet as to the state of Mr. Elton’s feelings proved less troublesome than Emma had expected it to be.  Harriet’s tears fell abundantly, but otherwise she bore the intelligence very meekly and well.

III.—­Emma’s Schemes in a Tangle

As if to make up for the absence of Mr. Elton, who went to spend a few weeks in Bath, in an endeavour to cure his wounded affections.  Highbury society was shortly enlarged by the arrival of two such welcome additions as Miss Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill.