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Mr Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself; – and two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,
‘It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.’
‘Mr Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir – or we should not have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for the weakness in little Bella’s throat, – both sea air and bathing.’
‘Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once.’
‘Come, come,’ cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, ‘I must beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable; – I who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr Perry yet; and he never forgets you.’
‘Oh! good Mr Perry – how is he, sir?’
‘Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himself – he tells me he has not time to take care of himself – which is very sad – but he is always wanted all round the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But then there is not so clever a man any where.’
‘And Mrs Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow? I have a great regard for Mr Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He will be so pleased to see my little ones.’
‘I hope he will be here tomorrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at little Bella’s throat.’
‘Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr Wingfield’s, which we have been applying at times ever since August.’
‘It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to her – and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken to –’
‘You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs and Miss Bates,’ said Emma, ‘I have not heard one inquiry after them.’
‘Oh! the good Bateses – I am quite ashamed of myself – but you mention them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs Bates – I will call upon her tomorrow, and take my children. – They are always so pleased to see my children. – And that excellent Miss Bates! – such thoroughly worthy people! – How are they, sir?’
‘Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs Bates had a bad cold about a month ago.’
‘How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn. Mr Wingfield told me that he has never known them more general or heavy – except when it has been quite an influenza.’
‘That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it altogether a sickly season.’
‘No, I do not know that Mr Wingfield considers it very sickly except –’
‘Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off! – and the air so bad!’
‘No, indeed – we are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is very superior to most others! – You must not confound us with London in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town; – there is hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in: but we are so remarkably airy! – Mr Wingfield thinks the vicinity of Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.’
‘Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it – but after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think you are any of you looking well at present.’
‘I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those little nervous headaches and palpitations which I am never entirely free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of coming. I hope you will think better of their looks tomorrow; for I assure you Mr Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that you do not think Mr Knightley looking ill,’ – turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety towards her husband.
‘Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr John Knightley very far from looking well.’
‘What is the matter, sir? – Did you speak to me?’ cried Mr John Knightley, hearing his own name.
‘I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking well – but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr Wingfield before you left home.’
‘My dear Isabella,’ – exclaimed he hastily – ‘pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I chuse.’
‘I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,’ cried Emma, ‘about your friend Mr Graham’s intending to have a bailiff from Scotland, to look after his new estate. But will it answer? Will not the old prejudice be too strong?’
And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing worse to hear than Isabella’s kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that moment very happy to assist in praising.
‘That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!’ said Mrs John Knightley. – ‘It is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always regret excessively on dear Emma’s account that she cannot be more at Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a delightful companion for Emma.’
Mr Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,
‘Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better companion than Harriet.’
‘I am most happy to hear it – but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so very accomplished and superior! – and exactly Emma’s age.’
This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied a great deal to be said – much praise and many comments – undoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerable; – but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a dangerous opening.
‘Ah!’