, without
modification or disguise. Beside the advantages Emily derived from Mrs. Jakeman,
she was permitted to take lessons from the masters who were employed at Tyrrel
Place for the instruction of her cousin; and indeed, as the young gentleman was
most frequently indisposed to attend to them, they would commonly have had
nothing to do, had it not been for the fortunate presence of miss Melvile. Mrs.
Tyrrel therefore encouraged the studies of Emily on that score; in addition to
which she imagined that this living exhibition of instruction might operate as
an indirect allurement to her darling Barnabas, the only species of motive she
would suffer to be presented. Force she absolutely forbad; and of the intrinsic
allurements of literature and knowledge she had no conception.
    Emily, as she grew up, displayed an uncommon degree of sensibility, which
under her circumstances would have been a source of perpetual dissatisfaction,
had it not been qualified with an extreme sweetness and easiness of temper. She
was far from being entitled to the appellation of a beauty. Her person was
petite and trivial; her complexion savoured of the brunette; and her face was
marked with the small pox, sufficiently to destroy its evenness and polish,
though not enough to destroy its expression. But, though her appearance was not
beautiful, it did not fail to be in a high degree engaging. Her complexion was
at once healthful and delicate; her long dark eye brows adapted themselves with
facility to the various conceptions of her mind; and her looks bore the united
impression of an active discernment and a good-humoured frankness. The
instruction she had received, as it was entirely of a casual nature, exempted
her from the evils of untutored ignorance, but not from a sort of native
wildness, arguing a mind incapable of guile itself, or of suspecting it in
others. She amused, without seeming conscious of the refined sense which her
observations contained: or rather, having never been debauched with applause,
she set light by her own qualifications; and talked from the pure gaiety of a
youthful heart acting upon the stores of a just understanding, and not with any
expectation of being distinguished and admired.
    The death of her aunt made very little change in her situation. This prudent
lady, who would have thought it little less than sacrilege to have considered
miss Melvile as a branch of the stock of the Tyrrels, took no more notice of her
in her will, than barely putting her down for one hundred pounds in a catalogue
of legacies to her servants. She had never been admitted into the intimacy and
confidence of Mrs. Tyrrel; and the young squire