"No indeed, I am engaged for the whole evening, so you must find a partner somewhere else; go and ask Miss Morgan or Miss Lamb."
"I obey with the alacrity which your commands must always inspire," and he went accordingly.
Miss Millar stayed a moment after him with Emma,
"I will not ask you to stand up," said she, "after the reason you gave me, but both Mrs. Watson and your youngest sister have joined the set you see. How shall you amuse yourself?"
"Oh, never mind me," replied Emma cheerfully, "where is Elizabeth—she does not dance surely?"
"No, she's playing cards with my brother and yours, I believe; they went into that little parlour on purpose. Will you join them and look on?"
Before Emma had time to answer, Annie was called away, and a moment after Mr. Morgan came, and taking a chair near her, entered into conversation with the ease of a man accustomed to see much of the world, and mix in good society. She was interested and amused by his conversation, and more especially so when she accidentally discovered that at college he had been well acquainted with Mr. Howard, had since been visiting occasionally in the neighbourhood of Osborne Castle, and knew the whole family. He was a good deal older than Howard he told her, but he had remained some time in the vicinity of Oxford after he began to practise; indeed he had adopted his profession rather late in life, and having a fellowship he had continued single.
All this he communicated to Emma, but he had tact soon enough to discover that his own history, unconnected with the family and neighbourhood of Osborne Castle, interested her but little. He soon therefore turned the conversation to that channel again, and discovered that her feelings were certainly deeply concerned in it. Yet he could not quite satisfy himself whether it was the young lord or his former tutor, whose name raised a tinge of blood to her cheek, which he saw to be very becoming. Indeed there were so many reminiscences and peculiar circumstances associated with her intimacy with Miss Osborne, and acquaintance with her brother, they were so strangely implicated in Margaret's affairs, and so much that Emma was ashamed of, was suggested by their names, that she was quite as ready to blush at the memory of them, as at the dearer and more tantalising recollections connected with Mrs. Willis and her brother. Well knowing the art of pleasing, Mr. Morgan allowed her to lead in the subject of the conversation, carefully following the turn which she chose to give it, and trying to read her feelings with his scrutinising eye, whilst he seemed to be all attention to her conversation at the moment. Annie's account of him had not prepossessed her in his favour, yet now she could not deny that he was on the whole an agreeable man. The interval of the two dances passed pleasantly away, but when they were concluded Mr. Morgan left her, and she soon afterwards stole away to the little room where the card-table was. For some reason, however, which she could not learn, the whist party had been broken up, and she only found sitting there George Millar and Elizabeth, apparently deeply engrossed in a game at chess. She seated herself near them; her sister looked up and smiled, and then resumed her game; no one spoke. Emma took up a folio of prints lying on the table, and amused herself with looking over them. At length her attention was arrested by the sound of her own name. By the voices she learnt the speakers were her sister-in-law and Mr. Morgan, and the first words she heard were, the gentleman saying:
"A very charming girl indeed, Mrs. Watson, that young sister-in-law of yours."
"You think so—do you admire her?" enquired the lady.