"I am sorry to have put you to any inconvenience, but I had not the least idea you wanted me," replied Emma, "what can I do for you now?"
The wrath of any one but Mrs. Watson, must have been disarmed and pacified by Emma's good-tempered answer, and the sweetness of her manner, but Jane's was a disposition which yielded only if violently opposed, but became every hour more encroaching when given way to. To Elizabeth, who boldly spoke her mind on all occasions, she was far more submissive—but over Emma she could tyrannise without fear of a rude or thoughtless retort, a rebellious action, or even a discontented look; consequently, Emma was now dispatched to the nursery to perform the office of maid to her little niece, whilst the woman, whose business it was to attend to this matter, was occupied in arranging her mistress's toilette.
At length, Mrs. Watson was ready, and sweeping into the nursery with as much finery as her mourning would allow her to display, she took away her little girl, and allowed Emma time to arrange her own dress for dinner.
On descending to the drawing-room she found her sister-in-law engaged in talking and listening eagerly to the important gentleman from the country, for whose sake the dinner party had been arranged.
He was a broad-faced, portly man, who filled up the arm-chair in which he was seated, with perfect accuracy of adjustment, and whose countenance seemed to Emma to express a sort of hungry tolerance of Mrs. Watson's attentions. Whenever the door opened, and admitted with each fresh arrival a strong scent of dinner from the kitchen, he seemed to imbibe the odour with peculiar satisfaction, and after inhaling sundry times the teeming atmosphere, heaved a sigh indicative of anticipation and comfortable assurance for the future.
The fluttering of Mrs. Watson's trimmings, the waving of her ringlets, and the affected little bursts of merriment in which she indulged for his amusement, hardly discomposed him at all, so intent was he on the forthcoming dinner. Robert Watson was standing over the fire talking to a gloomy, dark-browed young man, a stranger to Emma, who seemed to consider that in conferring the favor of his bodily presence on the Watsons, he was doing them so great an honor, that there was no occasion for him to trouble himself with any further efforts, and that the absence of mind in which he ostentatiously indulged, was due to his own dignity, impaired, or at least endangered by the situation in which he had suffered himself to be placed. There was also a thin, white-faced individual, something between a man and a boy, who was chattering to Margaret with all the ease and volubility of an old acquaintance. Emma remembered that she had heard Jane and Margaret speaking of a Mr. Alfred Freemantle, whose family were "quite genteel country people," as being articled to Mr. Watson, and concluded that the individual thus mentioned was before her. Just as she had settled this point in her own mind, and seated herself near Elizabeth, she perceived the young man make a prodigious theatrical start, and heard him exclaim in a tone which could not be called low:
"For heaven's sake who is that exquisitely beautiful creature?"
"It's only Emma—my sister Emma," said Margaret evidently vexed, "do you think her so very pretty? well I don't think I should call her so."
"She blushes divinely," cried he, fixing his eyes on her, "what a glorious complexion—and her name is Emma—sweet Emma."
Emma was half amused, but almost angry at his impertinence; had he been a little older, her anger would have been more decided, but he seemed such a mere boy, that she attributed his offensive behaviour to youthful ignorance; a charitable construction for which he would certainly not have thanked her.