Emma Part 2

Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way.

He liked very much to have his friends come and see him, and from various united causes, from his long residence at Hartfield and his good nature, from his fortune, his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his own little circle in a great measure as he liked.

He had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle.

His horror of late hours and large dinner parties made him unfit for any acquaintance but such as would visit him on his own terms.

[gentle music] Fortunately for him, Highbury, including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such.

Not unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion He had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him, but evening parties were what he preferred, and unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a card table for him.

Real long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley.

And by Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawing room and the smiles of his lovely daughter was in no danger of being thrown away.

After these came a second set.

Among the most obtainable were Mrs. and Miss Bates and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and carried home so often that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for either James or the horses.

Had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance.

Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past everything but tea and quadrille.

She lived with her single daughter in a very small way and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady under such untoward circumstances can excite.

Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.

Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favor, and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect.

She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness.

Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother and the endeavor to make a small income go as far as possible.

And yet she was a happy woman and a woman whom no one named without goodwill.

It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders.

She loved everybody, was interested in everybody's happiness, quick-sighted to everybody's merits, thought herself a most fortunate creature and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbors and friends and a home that wanted for nothing.

The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to everybody and a mine of felicity to herself.

She was a great talker upon little matters which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.

Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a school, not of a seminary or an establishment or anything which professed in long sentences of refined nonsense to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems and where young ladies for enormous pay might be ushered out of health and into vanity, but a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding school where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price and where girls might be sent to be out of the way and scramble themselves into a little education without any danger of coming back prodigies.

Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute and very deservedly, for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot.

She had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands.