the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it did not take her wholly by surprize. She
frequently gave me hints of it. I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude
for her attentions to Miss Fairfax. - I hope this history of my conduct towards her will be admitted by
you and my father as great extenuation of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having
sinned against Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and procure for
me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard
with so much brotherly affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as myself. -
Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight, you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury,
and my business was to get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion. If you
remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account. - Of the pianoforte so much talked of,
I feel it only necessary to say, that its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F - , who would
never have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her. - The delicacy of her mind throughout
the whole engagement, my dear madam, is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon,
I earnestly hope, know her thoroughly yourself. - No description can describe her. She must tell you
herself what she is - yet not by word, for never was there a human creature who would so designedly
suppress her own merit. - Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw, I have heard
from her. - She gives a good account of her own health; but as she never complains, I dare not depend.
I want to have your opinion of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread of the
visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars.
Remember how few minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and I am not
much better yet; still insane either from happiness or misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I
have met with, of her excellence and patience, and my uncle's generosity, I am mad with joy: but when
I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with
anger. If I could but see her again! - But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me
to encroach. - I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard all that you ought to hear. I could
not give any connected detail yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness
with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event of the 26th ult., as you will conclude,
immediately opened to me the happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,
but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to lose. I should myself have shrunk
from any thing so hasty, and she would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and refinement. -
But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered into with that woman - Here, my dear
madam, I was obliged to leave off abruptly, to recollect and compose myself. - I have been walking
over the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of my letter what it ought to
be. - It is, in fact, a most mortifying retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit,
that my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly blameable. She disapproved
them, which ought to have been enough. - My plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient. -
She was displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand occasions, unnecessarily
scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment,
and subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have escaped the greatest
unhappiness I have ever known. - We quarrelled. - Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell? -
There every little dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late; I met her walking
home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to
allow me, which I then thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very natural
and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving one
hour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a proposal
which might have made every previous caution useless? - Had we been met walking together between
Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected. - I was mad enough, however, to resent. -
I doubted her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when, provoked by such conduct
on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would
have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in a form of words
perfectly intelligible to me. - In short, my dear madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable
on mine; and I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with you till the next
morning, merely because I would be as angry with her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as