; and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate, - that we
should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends. But we never
did. I hardly know how it has happened; a little, perhaps, from that wickedness
on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so
cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And
then, her reserve - I never could attach myself to any one so completely
reserved.«
    »It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,« said he. »Oftentimes very
convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no
attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.«
    »Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be
the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion,
than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body's reserve to
procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question.
I have no reason to think ill of her - not the least - except that such extreme
and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct
idea about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to
conceal.«
    He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and
thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she
could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was not exactly what
she had expected; less of the man of the world in some of his notions, less of
the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better than she had expected. His ideas
seemed more moderate - his feelings warmer. She was particularly struck by his
manner of considering Mr. Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would
go and look at, and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could
not believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for
having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not think any
man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample room in it for every
real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who wanted more.
    Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about.
Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many
advantages
