‘For what amount’

‘Some thousands, I think it was.’

‘She has no money’:  Lady Wathin corrected her emphasis:  ’or ought to have none.’

‘She can’t have got it from him.’

‘Did you notice her Christian name?’

‘I don’t recollect it, if I did.  I thought the woman a donkey.’

’Would you consider me a busybody were I to try to mitigate this woman’s evil influence?  I love dear Constance, and should be happy to serve her.’

‘I want my girl married,’ said old Quintin.  ’He’s one of my Parliamentary chiefs, with first-rate prospects; good family, good sober fellow—­at least I thought so; by nature, I mean; barring your incantations.  He suits me, she liking him.’

‘She admires him, I am sure.’

‘She’s dead on end for the fellow!’

Lady Wathin felt herself empowered by Quintin Manx to undertake the release of sweet Constance Asper’s knight from the toils of his enchantress.  For this purpose she had first an interview with Mr. Warwick, and next she hurried to Lady Dunstane at Copsley.  There, after jumbling Mr. Warwick’s connubial dispositions and Mrs. Warwick’s last book, and Mr. Percy Dacier’s engagement to the great heiress in a gossipy hotch-potch, she contrived to gather a few items of fact, as that the young minister was probably modelled upon Mr. Percy Dacier.  Lady Dunstane made no concealment of it as soon as she grew sensible of the angling.  But she refused her help to any reconciliation between Mr. and Mrs. Warwick.  She declined to listen to Lady Wathin’s entreaties.  She declined to give her reasons.—­These bookworm women, whose pride it is to fancy that they can think for themselves, have a great deal of the heathen in them, as morality discovers when it wears the enlistment ribands and applies yo them to win recruits for a service under the direct blessing of Providence.

Lady Wathin left some darts behind her, in the form of moral exclamations; and really intended morally.  For though she did not like Mrs. Warwick, she had no wish to wound, other than by stopping her further studies of the Young Minister, and conducting him to the young lady loving him, besides restoring a bereft husband to his own.  How sadly pale and worn poor Mr. Warwick appeared?  The portrayal of his withered visage to Lady Dunstane had quite failed to gain a show of sympathy.  And so it is ever with your book-worm women pretending to be philosophical!  You sound them vainly for a manifestation of the commonest human sensibilities, They turn over the leaves of a Latin book on their laps while you are supplicating them to assist in a work of charity!

Lady Wathin’s interjectory notes haunted Emma’s ear.  Yet she had seen nothing in Tony to let her suppose that there was trouble of her heart below the surface; and her Tony when she came to Copsley shone in the mood of the day of Lord Dannisburgh’s drive down from London with her.  She was running on a fresh work; talked of composition as a trifle.