And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know?  Only three of us.—­ besides dear Jane at present—­and she really eats nothing—­makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened if you saw it.  I dare not let my mother know how little she eats—­so I say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off.  But about the middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet him in the street.  Not that I had any doubt before—­ I have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple.  I believe it is the only way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome.  We have apple-dumplings, however, very often.  Patty makes an excellent apple-dumpling.  Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these ladies will oblige us.”

Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,

“How do you do, Mrs. Ford?  I beg your pardon.  I did not see you before.  I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town.  Jane came back delighted yesterday.  Thank ye, the gloves do very well—­only a little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”

“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in the street.

Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.

“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.—­Oh! my mother’s spectacles.  So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! `Oh!’ said he, `I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind excessively.’—­Which you know shewed him to be so very. . . .  Indeed I must say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected, he very far exceeds any thing. . . .  I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly.  He seems every thing the fondest parent could. . . . `Oh!’ said he, `I can fasten the rivet.  I like a job of that sort excessively.’  I never shall forget his manner.  And when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some, `Oh!’ said he directly, `there is nothing in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’  That, you know, was so very. . . .  And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment.  Indeed they are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice—­only we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise to have them done three times—­ but Miss Woodhouse will be so good as not to mention it.  The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell—­some of Mr. Knightley’s most liberal supply.  He sends us a sack every year; and certainly there