At the same time, she confided to Emma her secret wonder that any woman should marry at all. Excepting her own brother, she did not believe there existed a single man in the world good enough to serve as a reasonable excuse for a woman becoming his slave. Emma remonstrated and protested at this idea, but Annie laughed and persisted: she asserted that nearly all men were dreadful and selfish, and that as it was impossible to be thoroughly acquainted with their dispositions until after marriage, and it was then too late to change, it was much better not to take the fatal step, but to continue mistress of oneself and one's fortune. She never meant to marry—that was her firm determination. Emma suggested that she might fall in love—but Annie protested again that the fall, which she considered a serious _fall_ indeed, was only the effect of a pre-disposition to commit matrimony, and that where the mind was firmly made up, as hers was, on the subject, there could not be the slightest danger of such an accident.
Emma smiled and said time would show, whilst Annie drew an animated picture of the miseries of matrimony, dwelling on all the little trifles which she could imagine or recollect, to convince her companion of the wretchedness of the state. In spite of the nonsense she talked, Emma liked her very much, and was quite sorry when their walk came to a termination.
Several days passed quietly, and there was, during that time, no solitary walk for Emma; one of her sisters was her constant companion, and sometimes Janetta accompanied her mother, sometimes went out with the maid. Neither did Mr. Morgan plague her any more, they passed two or three times on the road, but a friendly bow was all the intercourse they had together; and when he called on Mrs. Watson, which Emma rather thought occurred pretty often, she never saw him.
Her first interview was on the occasion of his coming to take a quiet dinner, and the cause of his being asked to do so was so grand an event, as to throw his presence quite into the shade. It was nothing less than the first visit of Tom Musgrove to his betrothed. He had written to say he was coming down to Croydon, and the announcement threw Margaret into such a state of trepidation and nervous excitement, as to make Mr. Morgan and a composing draught absolutely necessary for her. She was very near fainting when she received the letter, and indeed was only prevented by not knowing how to manage it. Her next idea was to go out, and see how many of her acquaintance she could meet with, either in the street or their own houses, to whom she might impart the interesting intelligence. She had intense gratification in assuring them of the nervous tremors, the palpitations, the painful excitement, the strain on the mental energies, the soft sensibility, the affecting circumstances, and all other sentiments and weaknesses, with which she was pleased to charge herself. She viewed with much satisfaction, the envy and mortification with which her joyous prospects were viewed by her sweet young friends; and the more cool and indifferent they appeared, the more she enjoyed expatiating on her own delightful situation. Some she kindly congratulated, because they had now experienced her agitating feelings, some she fondly caressed, because she could see they would feel the same in a similar situation, and some she triumphantly hoped might ever be blessed with prospects as bright as her own.