and Emma was at once astonished by finding it two o’clock, and considering that she had heard nothing of her father’s chair. After this discovery she had walked twicc to the window to cxamine the street, and was on the point of asking leave to ring the hell and make enquiries, when the light sound of a carriage driving up to the door set her heart at case. She stepped again to the window, but instead of the convenient though very un-smart family equipage perceived a neat curricle. Mr. Musgrave was shortly afterwards announced, and Mrs. Edwards put on her very stiffest look at the sound. Not at all dismayed, however, by her chilling air, he paid his compliments to cach of the ladies with no unbecoming ease, and continuing to address Emma presented her a note, which ‘he had the honour of bringing from her sister, but to which he must observe a verbal postscript from himself would be requisite.’
The note, which Emma was beginning to read rather before Mrs, Edwards had entreated her to use no ceremony, contained a few lines from Elizabeth importing that their father, in consequence of being unusually well, had taken the sudden resolution of attending the visitation that day, and that as his road lay quite wide from D. it was impossible for her to come home till the following morning, unless the Edwards would send her, which was hardly to be expected, or she could meet with any chance conveyance, or did not mind walking so far. She had scarcely run her eye through the whole, before she
