by our good friend here, Mrs. Edwards; she is by much too nice a judge of decorum to give her license to such a dangerous particularity-'
‘I am not going to dance with Master Blake, sir!’
The gentleman, a little disconcerted, could only hope he might be fortunate another time, and seeming unwilling to leave her, though his friend, Lord Osborne, was waiting in the doorway for the result, as Emma with some amusement perceived, he began to make civil enquiries after her family.
‘How comes it that we have not the pleasure of seeing your sisters liere this evening? Our assemblies have been used to be so well treated by them that we do not know how to take this neglect.’
‘My eldest sister is the only one at home, and she could not leave my father.'
‘Miss Watson the only one at hame! You astonish me! It seems but the day before yesterday that I saw them all three in this town. But J am afraid I have been a very sad neighbour of late. I hear dreadful complaints of my negligence wherever I go, and I confess it is a shameful length of time since I was at Stanton. But I shall now endeavour to make myself amends for the past.’
Emma’s calm curtsey in reply must have struck him as very unlike the encouraging warmth he had been used to receive from her sisters, and gave him probably the novel sensation of doubting his own influence, and of wishing for more attention than she bestowed. The dancing now recommenced; Miss Carr being impatient to call, everybody was required
