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    How she could have been so deceived! - He protested that he had never
thought seriously of Harriet - never! She looked back as well as she could; but
it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made every
thing bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering,
dubious, or she could not have been so misled.
    The picture! - How eager he had been about the picture! - and the charade! -
and an hundred other circumstances; - how clearly they had seemed to point at
Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its ready wit - but then, the soft eyes -
in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could
have seen through such thick-headed nonsense?
    Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to herself
unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere error of
judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others that he had not
always lived in the best society, that with all the gentleness of his address,
true elegance was sometimes wanting; but, till this very day, she had never, for
an instant, suspected it to mean any thing but grateful respect to her as
Harriet's friend.
    To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the subject,
for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying that those brothers
had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley had once said to her about
Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the conviction he had professed that Mr.
Elton would never marry indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a
knowledge of his character had been there shewn than any she had reached
herself. It was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in
many respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him; proud,
assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little concerned about the
feelings of others.
    Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his
addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his proposals
did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment, and was insulted by
his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the arrogance to raise his eyes
to her, pretended to be in love; but she was perfectly easy as to his not
suffering any disappointment that need be cared for. There had been