Journal 3

Harriet is spending more and more time at Hartfield now. While she leaves to gather somethings from Mrs. Goddard's, Mr. Knightlty and Emma have a chance to talk for awhile. They begin to talk about Harriet and Mr, Knightly tells Emma Mr. Martin came to him for advice about Harriet. He told Mr. Knightly his intentions to propose to Harriet, and Mr. Knightly helped him out. He believes Harriet and Mr. Martin would make an ideal couple. Emma is surprised at this, but tells Mr. Knightly he had indeed proposed already and Harriet has refused him. Mr. Knightly is very upset about this and blames Emma, saying she must have had something to do with her refusal. Emma says she let Harriet decide, but Mr. Knightly is still very mad ans almost loses his temper and snaps at her. Later, Harriet and Emma are playing around with charades, or riddles. When Mr. Elton comes back from London after getting the drawing framed, he writes a charade for the girls to figure out. Emma takes a look at it and interprets it to mean "courtship". She thinks this is Mr. Elton's way of proposing to Harriet. She tells Harriet this and breaks down the charade again. Harriet is absolutely speechless at this point. Mr. Elton was to join them for dinner at Hartfield that night, but he promised another friend he would eat with them and says he must go. Emma tells him she has figured out his charade and writes it down in Harriet's charade book. The next day, the girls go to visit a poor sick family in an area near Mr. Elton's home. They run into Mr. Elton on the way back and Emma tries to leave Harriet and Mr. Elton alone. She pretends to tie her shoes and drags behind. Eventually she is obligated to join them again. Unfortunately, she discovers they were talking of nothing significant.

I feel like Emma's plan is slowly failing. To think Mr. Elton's riddle was a proposal was a bit irrational and to think it was intended for Harriet was a bit of a jump as well. Unless I totally missed something, I don't recall Emma ever talking to Mr. Elton about it either. She is getting in way over her head. Mr. Elton isn't showing interest in Harriet like Emma assumed he would. I think she totally misunderstood the riddle and it is not going to end well. Also, I have a feeling Mr. Martin will end up talking to Mr. Knightly about his rejection and won't settle for it. It will be very interesting to see where all this ends up in the next few chapters!