Miss Austen sums up the kind of character that Emma is when, as Emma looks over the nearly blank streets of Highbury, the author says: "A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer." Frank too has apparently seen this in Emma, for he continues to encourage her suspicions about Jane and Mr. Dixon. Later the reader, who may already have some suspicions of his own about Frank, will learn that Frank is using this conjecture, along with his attentions to Emma, to disguise his real situation. He does a very good job of covering up, and it is this aspect of the novel that has led some critics to point out that on one limited level it is a mystery story. Miss Bates is closer to something like a discovery than she knows when she is incredulous about Frank's not having finished the simple repairs to Mrs. Bates' spectacles. Mrs. Bates' being asleep by the fire has left Frank and Jane alone together.
Humor and attendant satire become paramount when George arrives on horseback and talks with Miss Bates, who is far from being unhappy at having to shout her words to him from the house. His generous nature is obvious throughout the scene; also is his abrupt common sense, which is in comic conflict with Miss Bates' urge to talk at length, for he politely and successfully cuts her short. His continuing attitude toward Frank is illustrated when, about to say that he will come inside for five minutes, he learns that Frank and Mrs. Weston are inside and quickly says that he does not have enough time and that Miss Bates' room is already full enough. Crowning the comic scene is Miss Bates' insistence upon relaying the conversation to the drawing room, where the amused group has obviously already heard every word.
