Emma II

Mr Knightley is 16 years older than Emma, and he is one of the few people who is critical of her, who can see her faults. She is silly at times and arrogant, and although she has a good intelligence, she is fickle in her pursuit of learning. Emma feels lost without her governess, and is pleased when she meets a young girl who seems she could become a friend to her. Harriet Smith is the illegitimate daughter of "somebody" and lives at a local school, belonging to a Mrs Goddard who is a friend of the Woodhouses. She is 17 and has left off schooling and now is in Mrs Goddards care. She has started to socialise with the Highbury families, and Mrs Goddard asks if she can bring her to Hartfield, the Woodhouse home. Emma takes a liking to her as she is sweet, pretty and malleable. She can see that Harriet is not that clever but she convinces herself that she is a suitable friend and protegee and she begins to plan to get her friend married off. She learns from Harriet that she has just spent 2 months visiting one of her school friends who lives nearby. The girl Elizabeth Martin, is from a gentleman farmer's family, the Martins who rent Abbey Mill farm from Mr Knightley. Emma looks down on farmers, even ones who are favoured by Mr Knightley and she encourages Harriet to move away from the Martins' society and to look higher for her friends. Harriet is easily influenced, and wants to please Emma. But she then receives a proposal of marriage from Robert Martin, the farmer, who is her friend's brother. She is attracted to Robert but she asks Emma's advice. Emma subtly dissuades her from accepting his offer. Mr Knightley finds out that Robert has been proposing to Harriet and then hears that Harriet turned him down, and he is angry with Emma, who admits that she knew about it and that she thinks her friend can marry better. He tells her that Harriet is a silly girl, even if she is pretty and good natured, and that she has no legal family, and noone knows anything about her people other than that she is illegitimate. For her, a marriage to a respectable intelligent gentleman farmer will give her a secure home and family and she will be much happier than trying to rise higher in society.