taken up with the description of a country ball; then follow scenes of family life at the Watsons' home, where a married brother, Robert Watson, is introduced with his wife, in whom we certainly see the germ of Mrs. Elton. There is also a gleam of resemblance between old Mr. Watson and Mr. Woodhouse, but Mr. Watson is a very inferior edition of the delightful old man at Hartfield.
At this point the story, which only fills sixty-seven pages of print, closes abruptly, and it cannot be said that there was promise enough in it to make anyone regret its unfinished state. Probably Jane felt this herself, for at first she designed to continue it, and as she talked it over with her sister Cassandra she told her the intended sequel. "Mr. Watson was soon to die, and Emma to become dependent for a home on her narrow-minded sister-in-law and brother. She was to decline an offer of marriage from Lord Osborne" (one of the grandees who had formerly insulted her family), "and much of the interest of the tale was to arise from Lady Osborne's love for Mr. Howard (Lord Osborne's tutor) and his counter affection for Emma, whom he was finally to marry."
Mr. Howard is an agreeable person, who from the first is evidently destined for Emma, but it is doubtful if even Jane Austen could have made an interesting and pleasant story out of such materials. The Watsons are too vulgar, and their vulgarity is too obtrusive: there is no one, Emma herself and perhaps Mr. Howard excepted, to contrast with it, for the Osbornes are quite as vulgar in their way. Mrs. Robert Watson just escapes being amusing, and is only snappish and ill-tempered. Even in the fragment which we have, there is too much husband-hunting of the lowest kind to
