Instead of forgetting him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal suggestion of "Can it really be as my brother imagined?
can it be possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from Harriet to me ?--Absurd and insufferable!"-- Yet he would be so anxious for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father, and so delighted with Mrs.Weston; and at last would begin admiring her drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her good manners.

For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet's, in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr.Elton's nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to.

She heard enough to know that Mr.Weston was giving some information about his son; she heard the words "my son," and "Frank," and "my son," repeated several times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could quiet Mr.Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving question from her would have been awkward.
Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma's resolution of never marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr.
Frank Churchill, which always interested her.

She had frequently thought--especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor--that if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, character and condition.

He seemed by this connexion between the families, quite to belong to her.