The sisters had been truly happy to have met together again, and their parting was much less sorrowful than before, both bride and bridegroom insisting that Emma should come to them in April to make her home with them.
Poor Sam protested with no little warmth against this arrangement, but Elizabeth was not his elder sister for nothing.
"Cannot you have some sense, Sam!" she said. "Emma is quite too pretty, and has already been too much talked about, to be left alone with a pair of old bachelors!—the two of you out the half of the time! Oh! I know she can take care of herself better than could have been thought possible—she has told me all about Captain Conway—but she should not be left in such a position—her home is with her sister!"
CHAPTER XVIII
Unfortunately, Emma contracted a chill during the long drive back from the wedding, and in spite of, or perhaps, rather as a result of the various remedies with which she was treated, she was still very far from strong when Sam took her over to Wickstead, and left her in the care of Elizabeth.
With what mingled feelings did not Emma view once more the scene where she had spent one of the happiest evenings of her life. Once again, in fancy, she was received by Mr. Howard with all that particularity which had assured her that the entertainment had been arranged with a sole view to enjoying her society. Once again as she entered the dining-parlour, she saw herself at his side, and heard the raillery of his voice as he combated her cherished opinions—from no personal conviction as she had been well aware, but in order to draw her into friendly combat. In the evening afterwards, perhaps she alone had been conscious of his vexation at Miss Osborne's intrusion; and she had also divined his intention of retaining her as his neighbour at cards. The moment of parting was also present with her.
But more to her than all these memories was that of the fateful moment at the ball, when he had begged her to return him the rose he had given to her. Even now it so moved her that she endeavoured to refrain from dwelling on it. Yet how had she been so vain, so foolish, as to have mistaken an ordinary flirtation of a man of the world, for an emotion of a deeper character? For there could no longer be any doubt in her mind with respect to him. He had simply been amusing himself, he had had no intentions with regard to her. Nor had he in any way stepped beyond the limits of convention—blame rested solely with herself. Her former experience of life, slight as it had been, should have taught her that all men of breeding and fashion are more or less adepts at flirting—unless indeed they are scarcely to be tolerated.
Sweet and unselfish as was Emma's nature, the perfect happiness of Elizabeth and Henry Purvis, in a setting so pregnant of another—where every article of furniture seemed to speak of that other—could not but make her sensible of a feeling of bereavement; nor could she withhold her wayward fancy from depicting herself, and that other, as playing the part of her sister and brother-in-law, in their daily life.