Volume Two now ends, but without an external climax as in Volume One. There is, however, a definite rising, climaxing, and sloughing plot action in Emma's feelings for Frank Churchill, but this is internal and it is not yet entirely resolved. Some mystery has been hinted in regard to Jane and to Frank, but it is not really yet developed—much less resolved—and it serves primarily to underscore the further probability of Emma's self-deception. Augusta is introduced as a new conflictive element for Emma, one from which she may subconsciously learn something of herself; in fact, the brash and willful Augusta is one of Miss Austen's most subtle plot elements, for the author never has Emma directly confront herself with the Augusta in herself—Augusta is a negative force helping almost unperceived toward a positive end.
More specifically, in these concluding chapters Augusta is the butt of immediate satire. She is blithely unaware that she strikes herself when she says that "modern ease often disgusts me," and she creates a reader's delight when, in talking with Mr. Weston about her sister, she realizes that she has caught herself in her own cross fire of coy modesty and proud pretensions.
Since John's two sons enter these final chapters of Volume Two, it is perhaps worth noting that children and servants are merely in the background throughout the novel. The reader is never made to see them or feel their presence, though when the reader looks very closely, servants in particular are in abundance. One reason is that in this society servants (even one for the poor Bateses) and perhaps children are taken for granted. Another is that the satire of the novel is based, not upon general realism, but upon social realism as found in a provincial community where servants and children do not figure socially. Servants and children will conform to their predictable natures, but only the adult socialites have the freedom and wherewithal to create or inherit a code of manners and to let their conformities and aberrations be measured by that code.
Once again in rounding out a volume, Miss Austen points toward Frank Churchill and his imminent presence in Highbury. Also once again her concluding scene involves a kind of cross-purpose relationship between Emma and George.
