 Mr. Tyrrel, and ultimately brought to its close the felicity, that
miss Melvile in spite of the frowns of fortune had hitherto enjoyed. Emily was
exactly seventeen when Mr. Falkland returned from the continent. At this age she
was peculiarly susceptible of the charms of beauty, grace and moral excellence,
when united in a person of the other sex. She was imprudent, precisely because
her own heart was incapable of guile. She had never yet felt the sting of the
poverty to which she was condemned, and had not reflected on the insuperable
distance that custom has placed between the opulent and the poorer classes of
the community. She beheld Mr. Falkland, whenever he was thrown in her way at any
of the public meetings, with admiration; and, without having precisely explained
to herself the sentiments she indulged, her eyes followed him through all the
changes of the scene with eagerness and impatience. She did not see him, as the
rest of the assembly did, born to one of the amplest estates in the county, and
qualified to assert his title to the richest heiress. She thought only of
Falkland, with those advantages which were most intimately his own, and of which
no persecution of adverse fortune had the ability to deprive him. In a word she
was transported when he was present; he was the perpetual subject of her
reveries and her dreams; but his image excited no sentiment in her mind beyond
that of the immediate pleasure she took in his idea.
    The notice Mr. Falkland bestowed on her in return appeared sufficiently
encouraging to a mind so full of prepossession as that of Emily. There was a
particular complacency in his looks when directed towards her. He had said in a
company, of which one of the persons present repeated his remarks to miss
Melvile, that she appeared to him amiable and interesting, that he felt for her
unprovided and destitute situation, and that he should have been glad to be more
particular in his notice of her, had he not been apprehensive of doing her a
prejudice in the suspicious mind of Mr. Tyrrel. All this she considered as the
ravishing condescension of a superior nature; for, if she did not recollect with
sufficient assiduity his gifts of fortune, she was on the other hand filled with
reverence for his unrivalled accomplishments. But, while she thus seemingly
disclaimed all comparison between Mr. Falkland and herself, she probably
cherished a confused feeling as if some event that was yet in the womb of fate
might reconcile things apparently the most incompatible. Fraught with these
prepossessions, the civilities, that had once or twice occurred in the bustle of
