During this soliloquy, Elizabeth without listening in the least to her brother, was eagerly replying to Mrs. Robert's offer.
"You are extremely kind Jane, to give me such pleasure; you know there is nothing I should like better, but I must not think of it—indeed I must not. I do not think my father would like my leaving home whilst he is so ill. Margaret is so useless a housekeeper, and hates the trouble so much—and Emma being the youngest, perhaps it would not do: if Pen were at home, it would be different: she makes a capital housekeeper, and she amuses my father when he is well too—I think when Pen comes back, I think I might be tempted."
"I should think our house might offer a very pleasant change to any young lady shut up so much as you are in this miserable place. I am sure most of my friends are more anxious to stay than go."
"Oh, it is not that I doubt the pleasure," replied Elizabeth; "it would be a great treat to me, I am sure. But you must not be angry at my refusing now."
"Angry! I am not a person to be angry about trifles—it is not my way to fret or take on, I leave that for those who have no other way of showing their dignity but by growling at everything. People blessed with my birth and education need not resort to such pitiful means to look grand and important."
Emma sighed many times to see the temper of her brother so uncomfortably irritable, and grieved again and again in secret, over the destruction of some of her most fondly cherished hopes. All her life she had wished for fraternal affection; much as she had loved her uncle and aunt, she had always wished to know and love her brothers and sisters. The vain wishes she had expended on this subject now rose up to haunt her memory with the thought that she had been ungratefully slighting the good she had enjoyed, for the sake of unknown objects which still evaded her. True she was now acquainted with five members of her family; but of these how little there was to attach, in the three last met, she hardly liked to own even to herself. Robert was surly; Jane conceited, Margaret fretful—and all seemed self-occupied. She tried to check these thoughts, she was shocked at her own wickedness in conceiving such things, but the feeling was there, even when not clothed in words, and she could not eradicate it.
Elizabeth she dearly loved already, but from what she heard, she fancied Penelope would not be very agreeable—and her last hope was in Sam. If he would only love her—be a friend, a companion to her—she still flattered herself this was possible, for Elizabeth certainly seemed to like him, and one letter of his, which Emma had heard, gave her a favorable impression of his character. With the fond idea of being loved by one brother at least, at some future time, Emma saw her eldest brother and his wife depart without any of the regret which afflicted both her other sisters, having strong internal convictions that the house would be now more peaceable.
CHAPTER VI.
"What are you going to do this morning, Elizabeth?" inquired Margaret in a voice between langour and peevishness.
"Oh, I have a hundred things to do," cried Miss Watson, turning from the window where she had watched her brother and his wife drive off. "I must go and see about helping Nanny put away the best china and glass, and I must pin up the curtains, and put by all the things in the best bed-room—which were had out for Jane's use; and I want to try that receipt she gave me for a pudding for my father—and fifty other things beside."