"I should be sorry to think that I merited your accusation, Mr. Musgrove: scorn cannot be a becoming quality in a young lady."
"Nay, there can be nothing unbecoming which you can do; youth and beauty have unlimited privileges," whispered he again. "Miss Osborne vows you eclipse Miss Carr in beauty, and she would rather have you for a friend. She is dying to be introduced to you."
"It is quite unnecessary to inflict such a death upon her even in imagination, Mr. Musgrove—for our acquaintance has progressed too far for that phrase to be at all applicable to it."
"Yes now, I dare say; Osborne told me, but I forget, you went over the castle I think."
"No, we did not."
"You did not! that was unlucky; I wish I had known you were going, I would have been there, and I could have suggested it to Miss Osborne; I dare say she would have shewn you all the rooms."
"She offered to do so, but we put it off till another time; we thought we should be too hurried."
"It's a pity you did not dine there; its something quite grand to see all the plate—I quite enjoy it—they give such good dinners."
"You do not seem aware that we did dine there," replied Emma, "and, as I had seen other large establishments before, I saw nothing so very astonishing at their table."
"You did dine there—yes—but that was in a family way; the thing is to see a regular great dinner—twenty people sitting down—that is what I like."