In Chapter 27 Emma, always so quick to see the faults in the manners of others, does not come over as behaving quite like the perfect lady herself. Lets take her remarks on the Cox sisters, whose brother Emma dismissed back in Chapter 16 as a possible husband for Harriet, though only in soliloquy, with "Oh! no, I could not endure William Cox -- a pert young lawyer." (How Harriet could endure young Mr Cox is clearly irrelevant). First she tells Harriet that she thought the Cox girls, fellow-guests at the Coles on the night before, looked "Just as they always do -- very vulgar."

I'm sure the conduct books of the time would not rate that as a very genteel observation.

Harriet then mentions that Robert Martin dined with the Cox family on the previous Saturday, that the Cox girls talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox, of whom Harriet says "I do not know what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there again next summer." And Emma says "She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should be."