“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and taking her hand.  “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted even—­”

“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.—­ So cold and artificial!—­I had always a part to act.—­It was a life of deceit!—­I know that I must have disgusted you.”

“Pray say no more.  I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.  Let us forgive each other at once.  We must do whatever is to be done quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there.  I hope you have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”

“Very.”

“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you—­ just as I begin to know you.”

“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet.  I am here till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”

“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma, smiling—­“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”

The smile was returned as Jane answered,

“You are very right; it has been thought of.  And I will own to you, (I am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill at Enscombe, it is settled.  There must be three months, at least, of deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing more to wait for.”

“Thank you, thank you.—­This is just what I wanted to be assured of.—­ Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and open!—­ Good-bye, good-bye.”

CHAPTER XVII

Mrs. Weston’s friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by knowing her to be the mother of a little girl.  She had been decided in wishing for a Miss Weston.  She would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father and mother best.  It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew older—­ and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence—­to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston—­ no one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have their powers in exercise again.

“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she continued—­“like La Baronne d’Almane on La Comtesse d’Ostalis, in Madame de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”

“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all.  It will be the only difference.”