The beginning of Volume Two not only introduces an entirely new character, Jane Fairfax (prepared for earlier, of course), but also indicates that Emma's flair for intrigue is far from being extinguished. Still trying to console Harriet for her "loss" of Mr. Elton, she can nonetheless imagine an emotional entanglement for Jane and also wish to manipulate her toward a suitable partner. Emma's fluctuating tendency is exemplified in her initial dislike and jealousy of Jane, her subsequent admiration for Jane's qualities and sorrow for her penniless condition, and her final return to disliking the orphan. Concomitant with, and perhaps causative of, Emma's attitude is the fact that Jane is her first real competition in both acquirements and beauty.
A measure of Miss Austen's realism and satire is found in the characterization of Miss Bates. Miss Bates is such a compulsive talker that she jumps hurriedly from subject to subject, as if time is too short for her necessity to vocalize everything that comes into her life (she says practically nothing of herself except as being the object of everyone's goodness), and treats everything as of equal importance. The satire, however, lies not only in the delineation of Miss Bates but also in the kind of society that will put up with her; it is of course ambiguous satire, each element containing that which is not admirable and that which is (Miss Bates, for instance, is good intention personified).
