Eventually, Emma’s bored disdain for the people around her led her to her very worst moment. Frank Churchill, her governess’s stepson, had come to Highbury for a visit. Frank was lively, good-looking, a little bit of a bad boy, and he played up to Emma so extravagantly that her head grew bigger than ever. It was summer, and they all decided to go on a picnic: Emma, Frank, Harriet, Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates, Mr. Elton—everyone who mattered. When they actually got there, though, Emma and Frank’s flirtation was so oppressive to everybody else that they all soon found themselves sitting around with nothing to say. So Frank devised a happy plan to have them entertain the grand young lady. “Here are seven of you,” he announced, “and she only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, . . . or two things moderately clever, . . . or three things very dull indeed.” Poor, harmless Miss Bates, who knew perfectly well how tedious everybody found her, was left feeling very self-conscious. “Oh! very well,” she exclaimed, “then I need not be uneasy. ‘Three things very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I?”

And that was when Emma, carried away by Frank’s flattery and her own sense of effortless superiority, hit bottom. “Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number—only three at once.” It was a shocking piece of cruelty, all the worse for the way that its victim received it:

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.

“Ah!—well—to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, . . . and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”