"Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty
kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a
better companion than Harriet."
"I am most happy to hear it; but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so
very accomplished and superior, and exactly Emma's age."
This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar
moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not
close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied
a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting
decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe
philippies upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerably;
but unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to
instance, the most recent and therefore most prominent was in her own
cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been
able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin,
but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered it, she had
never been able to get anything tolerable. Here was a dangerous opening.
"Ah," said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head, and fixing his eyes on her
with tender concern. The ejaculation in Emma's ear expressed, "Ah, there
is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It does
not bear talking of." And for a little while she hoped he would not talk
of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the
relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes,
however, he began with--
"I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn,
instead of coming here."
"But why should you be sorry, sir? I assure you it did the children a
great deal of good."
"And moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been to
South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprised to hear
you had fixed upon South End."
"I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite
a mistake, sir. We all had our health perfectly well there, never found
the least inconvenience from the mud, and Mr. Wingfield says it is
entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may
be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and
his own brother and family have been there repeatedly."
"You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere. Perry
was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the
sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And by
what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the
sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have
consulted Perry."
"But my dear sir, the difference of the journey: only consider how great
it would have been. A hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty."
"Ah, my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else
should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to
choose between forty miles and a hundred. Better not move at all, better
stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into a worse
air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very
ill-judged measure."
Emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he had
reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her
brother-in-law's breaking out.
"Mr. Perry," said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, "would do
as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it
any business of his to wonder at what I do at my taking my family to one
part of the coast or another? I may be allowed, I hope, the use of my
judgment as well as Mr. Perry. I want his directions no more than his
drugs." He paused, and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only
sarcastic dryness, "If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and
five children a distance of a hundred and thirty miles with no greater
expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as
willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself."
"True, true," cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition, "very
true. That's a consideration, indeed. But, John, as to what I was
telling you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more
to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot
conceive any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the
means of inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind
exactly the present light of the path--The only way of proving it,
however, will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey
to-morrow morning, I hope, and then we will look them over, and you
shall give me your opinion."
Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his
friend Perry, to whom he had in fact, though unconsciously, been
attributing many of his own feelings and expressions; but the soothing
attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and the
immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the
other, prevented any renewal of it.