claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing a little while, and then said,

“But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.”

“Ah! papa–that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her husband.”

That was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse could only give a submissive sigh; and Emma saw his spirits affected by the idea of his daughter’s attachment to her husband, she immediately led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them.

“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children. We are very proud of the children, are we not, papa? I wonder which she will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”

“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”

“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”

“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very much like his mamma. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will come and stand by my chair, and say, ‘Grand-papa, can you give me a bit of string?’ and once Henry asked me for a knife,

but I told him knives were only made for grand-papas. I think their father is too rough with them very often.”

“He appears very rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle with yourself; but if you could compare him to other papas, you would not think him rough. He wished his boys to be active and hardy; and if they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an affectionate father–certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate father. The children are all fond of him.”

“And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way!”

“But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of their taking turns, which ever began would never give way to the other.”

Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate in preparation for their regular four o’clock dinner, the hero of this inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in him the consciousness of having made a push–of having thrown a die; and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse’s party could be made up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give way’ but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his dining with him–had made such a point of it, that he had promised him conditionally to come.