Emma

uncertain; but _who_ she was, might be found out; and setting aside the
10,000 l., it did not appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior.
She brought no name, no blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the
youngest of the two daughters of a Bristol—merchant, of course, he must
be called; but, as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life
appeared so very moderate, it was not unfair to guess the dignity of
his line of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she
had been used to spend in Bath; but Bristol was her home, the very
heart of Bristol; for though the father and mother had died some years
ago, an uncle remained—in the law line—nothing more distinctly
honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line; and
with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to be the drudge of
some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the grandeur of the
connexion seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was _very_ _well_
_married_, to a gentleman in a _great_ _way_, near Bristol, who kept
two carriages! That was the wind-up of the history; that was the glory
of Miss Hawkins.

Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had