It was not until Harriet rose to move to a seat closer to the window, that Mrs Martin observed that she thought Miss Smith was grown and Elizabeth at once revived all their former intimacy by saying:

“We can see if she is, Mamma, there is her mark on the wainscot. Robert measured us all last September.”

Such a subject could not fail to bring warmth to all their voices. A smile overspread Harriet’s face, returning all the captivating sweetness that had so endeared her to them before, and she exclaimed most affectionately upon reading her own name beneath those of her two friends.

They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, the party, the occasion—to feel the same consciousness, the same regrets—to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they were just growing again like themselves, when the sound of a carriage was heard, and Miss Woodhouse’s chaise was once more seen at the gate.

Harriet’s spirits instantly sank and here eyes were turned towards the ground so soon that she could not even have observed the mortification on the faces of her friends. Such a visit. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago!

“I am afraid I must take my leave…” Harriet murmured.

Susannah preserved an indignant silence, and Mrs Martin only replied: “But of course. Miss Woodhouse must not be kept waiting.”

This was said so coolly that Elizabeth felt it incumbent on her to walk her friend to the door, even if her sister remained with their mother, saying in a low voice:

"Well, there's an end to all speculation, I daresay. Miss Woodhouse does not look kindly upon us."

"Say not another word about it, my dear. I would not for the world speak ill of any person esteemed by Mr Knightley, you know I would not." And this, spoken in such a tone, was quite sufficient to convey exactly what the lady felt at that moment.

Elisabeth’s feelings were impossible to describe. She could have reproached her former schoolfellow, had she not looked so very low. Their parting, which would once have attended all those embraces and tendernesses of the best of friends and closes of confidantes, was marked by ceremonious civility; and Harriet walked slowly down the gravel walk, to the carriage in which Miss Woodhouse was just barely visible.

The carriage drove off, carrying both Harriet and its mistress, Elisabeth imagined, to Highbury, which must have completely supplanted Abbey Mill Farm in the heart of the girl she had once hoped to call sister. And yet, Harriet had not come here unwillingly, she had not been cold, merely embarrassed, conscious of the pain she had brought. She had not looked as if she wished to leave them so soon—

“Miss Woodhouse is a very punctual young lady, I am sure,” observed Mrs Martin when her daughter re-entered the room and Elizabeth blanched with mortification.

“To see her sitting in her carriage, you'd think it was a punishment to look upon our very gate,” she said with trembling voice.

To have a brother disappointed in love, was one thing, but to see a sister, an only, younger sister, with the tears of wounded friendship in her eyes, proved too much for Susannah’s temper. She affected a gasp and cried: “How can it be otherwise! The gates were put in new only last spring.”

And lifting up her chin, she spoke, in a proper, modulated tone not unlike that of Miss Woodhouse:

“A very good sort of gate, I daresay, but I would be sorry to pass through any that had not been long established in the neighbourhood. One can expect nothing of a gate that has stood for under a decade, 'tis but a new creation.”