the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage stopped; she looked up; it was stopped by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound—for Mr. Weston immediately accosted her with,
“How d’ye do?—how d’ye do?—We have been sitting with your father—glad to see him so well. Frank comes tomorrow—I had a letter this morning—we see him tomorrow by dinnertime to a certainty—he is at Oxford today, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have stayed three days; I was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him completely; everything has turned out exactly as we could wish.”
There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston’s, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose. To know that she thought his coming certain was enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in the rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now be talked of no more.
Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command, as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened, and smiled, and congratulated.
“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.
Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife.