"Is it not with rather a strange sensation that you meet your nearest relations; they must be almost unknown to you."
"I have made acquaintance with one brother and two sisters," replied Emma with something like a sigh; "But I have yet to meet another brother and sister."
"It seems almost a pity," said Mr. Howard thoughtfully, "to bring up one child apart and differently from the other members of a family, if they are ultimately to be rejoined. At least I feel in my own case how much I should have lost, had Clara been separated from me in childhood. I suppose it rarely happens that a brother and sister are so much together as we were—but we were orphans, and everything to each other till her marriage."
"It does not do, Mr. Howard, to indulge in retrospective considerations, if they tend to make one dissatisfied," said Emma, with an attempt to check a tear or hide it by a smile; "my friends wished to do everything for the best, and if the result has been different from their intentions, they are not to blame. But I do not know that I should choose to repeat the experiment for one under my care."
"Do you like the neighbourhood?" enquired he, feeling that he had no right to press the last subject further.
"I have seen so little; the weather has been so unfavourable, but it does not strike me as being very beautiful about Winston. I was used to fine scenery in the west of England."
"Then you will naturally think Winston flat and uninteresting.—Osborne Castle and its park have beauties, however, which you cannot despise—but in my enquiry I rather referred to the inhabitants—have you pleasant neighbours about your father's house—I do not visit in the village."
"We live so very quietly," replied Emma, who had no intention of satisfying his curiosity as to their acquaintance, "that I have had no opportunity of judging. I saw a great many people at the ball, but as you must have seen them too, you are as equal to decide on their appearance as I am."
"You know Mr. Tom Musgrove of course?"
"A little."