"Well, Emma," cried Elizabeth, "I should like to know what you have been doing all this time—what an age you have been gone!"
"Looking at pictures, Elizabeth—you know what I went for."
"I know what you went for indeed, but how do I know what you stayed for. Pictures indeed—looking at pictures for two hours and a half—and in the dark too!"
Emma laughed.
"Of what do you suspect me, Elizabeth?" cried she as her sister placed a candle so as to throw the light on her face.
"Which have you been flirting with?" said Elizabeth taking her sister's hand, and closely examining her countenance. "The peer or the parson, which of your two admirers do you prefer?"
"How can you ask such an unnecessary question?" returned Emma, blushing and laughing, yet struggling to disengage herself, "would you hesitate yourself—is not Lord Osborne the most captivating, elegant, lively, fascinating young nobleman who ever made rank gracious and desirable. Would you not certainly accept him?"
"Why yes, I think I should—it would be something to be Lady Osborne—mistress of all those rooms and servants, carriages and horses. I think I should like it, but then I shall never have the choice!"
"So far as I am concerned, I do not think I shall interfere with your power of accepting him—if he makes you an offer, do not refuse it on my account."
"Very well—and when I am Lady Osborne, I will be very kind to Mrs. Howard—I will send and ask her to dine with me most Sundays, and some week days too."