and makes me wonder whether Emma, though eschewing serious reading, reads novels. It might explain her fancies about Harriet's birth, as quite a few novels of the time had beautiful young heroines being raised in obscurity who turned out to be the daughters of gentlemen or noblemen and frequently legitimate after all - I am thinking particularly of Mrs Smith's Emmeline. However, Emma is four years older than Catherine Morland and more intelligent, so there is less excuse for her, and at that Catherine only blurts out her theory when she gets caught investigating it and can't think wjat else to say. That is materially different from sharing her fantasy with someone she met the week before, which is what Emma does.

I would have no quarrel with Emma's vivid imagination if she sat down and wrote a book, preferably one where she made the characters up out of whole cloth - as indeed the author did. Acting her fantasies out has the potential to do real and lasting harm, and has already caused Harriet real distress.