"And what do you call your chance?" said Captain Morgan. He planted himself in the front of the fireplace with his legs very wide apart, which, as his wife well understood, meant war.
"My old man," she said, "what do you know about the talk of girls? They have one way of thinking, and we have another. They are young, and we are old."
"Hester is younger than she is," said the captain, "let her alone. She is as ready to talk as there is any need to be."
"My chance, grandpapa?" said Emma with a slow little laugh. "It is not necessary, is it, to explain? a girl's chance is in making--friends. If one goes for a governess one's family does not like it. They would rather you were your sister's head nurse with all the trouble, and without any pay. Roland has taken me now--and I do not require to work for my living; but it is not so very cheerful with Roland that I should not wish--if I could--to make a change. We must all think of ourselves you know."
"My dear," said the old lady in her soft voice, "in one way that is very true."
"It is very true, I think, in every way. It might be cheerful for me if Roland were to spend his evenings at home as Tom Pinch in Dickens did with his sister. But then Roland is not a bit like Tom Pinch, and I said to him when I came, 'You are not to change your life for me.' So that sometimes, you know, I am in the house all alone all day, and then if he is out to dinner, or if he has any evening engagement, I am alone all the night. And if he were to marry, why there would be an end of me altogether. So you see, grandmamma, wherever I am, it is very natural that I should wish to have my chance."
"How old are you?" said the captain abruptly.
"I shall be twenty-three at Christmas," said Emma, raising her eyes to his face. She was curious to know why he asked--whether he thought her older, or younger than her age, whether he thought it was strange she should still be unmarried. "I was kept very much out of sight when I was with Elinor," she said half apologetically. She had not had her "chance" as she had always wished to have. She had not been very well treated she felt in this life, the youngest of seven. She had been passed on from one to another of her married sisters to make herself useful. All of them had said that Emma must "come out," but no one had taken any trouble about it. She had to scramble for a dress, a very cheap one, and to coax Elinor into taking her to some little local merrymaking, and so opening, as it were, the gates of society. As soon as she could say that she was "out" Emma had kept the idea of having "her chance" of making friends and getting invitations always before her. But her opportunities had not been great, and Elinor had not devoted herself to her younger sister. She was still young enough to amuse herself, and it had not occurred to her to put so unimportant a person as Emma in the foreground. So that she had never been allowed to have much of a "chance." Emma had not much experience of the world. Of the many novels she had read, and which were her guides to life, a great many devoted themselves to the history and description of young ladies at whose entrance into a ball-room every man present fell metaphorically on his knees. She was acquainted with many evening parties in fiction at which the fate of countless young men and women was decided. The smallest dance would be represented there as bringing people together who were never more to be sundered. Emma herself had not produced any such sensation at the small parties she had hitherto gone to, but she felt that this glory must be awaiting her, and especially that in a new place like this Redborough, in some waltz or other, among some unknown assembly she should meet her fate.