Emma was sorry;—­to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like through three long months!—­to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought!  Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.  But “she could never get acquainted with her:  she did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve—­ such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not—­and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!—­and she was made such a fuss with by every body!—­and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimate—­because their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so fond of each other.”  These were her reasons—­ she had no better.

It was a dislike so little just—­every imputed fault was so magnified by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’ interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating.  Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for elegance.  Her height was pretty, just such as almost every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two.  Emma could not but feel all this; and then, her face—­her features—­ there was more beauty in them altogether than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing beauty.  Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom.  It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her principles, admire it:—­elegance, which, whether of person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury.  There, not to be vulgar, was distinction, and merit.

In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer.  When she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible to feel any thing but compassion and respect;