CHAPTER XI

"Harriet, poor Harriet!"-- Those were the words; in them lay the tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted the real misery of the business to her.

Frank Churchill had behaved very ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_ behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him.

It was the scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the deepest hue to his offence .-- Poor Harriet! to be a second time the dupe of her misconceptions and flattery.

Mr.Knightley had spoken prophetically, when he once said, "Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith."-- She was afraid she had done her nothing but disservice .-- It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed.

She might have prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments.