Эмма. Уровень 3 / Emma

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“Six years after! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”

“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry. Mr. Martin, I imagine, is not rich at all.”

“To be sure, he is not. But they live very comfortably.”

“I wish you may not get into a scrape[32 - get into a scrape – попасть в неловкое положение], Harriet, whenever he does marry; – I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates.

There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by everything, or there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you.”

“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield, and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what anybody can do.”

“Dear Harriet, I would have you so firmly established in good society.

I want to see you permanently well connected.”

Emma saw no alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer and no more, and that there would be no serious difficulty, on Harriet's side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her own.

They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion.

Robert Martin's appearance was very neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no other advantage.

They remained but a few minutes together; and Harriet then came running to Emma with a smiling face.

“How very odd! It was quite a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet.

Well, Miss Woodhouse, what do you think of him?”

“He is very plain, undoubtedly-remarkably plain: – but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility[33 - his entire want of gentility – полное отсутствие в нём хорошего тона]. I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish.”

“To be sure,” said Harriet, “he is not so genteel as real gentlemen.