want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about.  There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need.  There will be enough for every hope and every fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder.  My nephews and nieces!—­I shall often have a niece with me.”

“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece?  That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times—­but are you acquainted?”

“Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury.  By the bye, that is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece.  Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane Fairfax.  One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax.  Every letter from her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month.  I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.”

They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded.  Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse.  She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will.  In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good.  How trifling they make every thing else appear!—­I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?”

“Very true,” said Harriet.  “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else.”

“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again.  “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.

“Oh! dear, no,” said her companion.

They walked on.  The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma time only to say farther,