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evenings when “there was much very agreeable conversation…thewhole family used often to sit on the steps of the old portico with the flower-garden in front, and with the steep wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, with here and there a fish rising or a water-bird paddling about.”
    Charles’s Wedgwood cousins had been brought up with few, if any, rules and the encouragement to think freely. Whereas Uncle Jos could seem stern, he was a much more accepting person than Charles’s father, and a more relaxed parent. Both Uncle Jos and his wife, Bessy, thought everyone—boys and girls, men and women—should have their own opinions and be able to express them. Back in 1819, a family friend who had visited Maer wrote in her journal “I never saw anything pleasanter than the ways of going on of this family, and one reason is the freedom of speech upon every subject; there is no difference in politics or principles of any kind that makes it treason to speak one’s mind openly, and they all do it. There is a simplicity of good sense about them, that no one ever dreams of not differing upon any subject where they feel inclined…There is no bitterness in discussing opinions.” The children “have freedom in their actions in this house as well as in their principles. Doors and windows stand open, you are nowhere in confinement; you may do as you like; you are surrounded by books that all look most tempting to read; you will always find some pleasant topic of conversation, or may start one, as all things are talked of in the general family. All this sounds and is delightful.”
    Charles was already good friends with one of the Wedgwood children, Hensleigh, the juggler of children and boxes. And a few months earlier, Charles had spent some time with another cousin, Emma, who was just nine months older than he was. He had seen her late that spring when she and his sister Catherine stopped in London on their way to and from atrip they took together to Paris. On their way back, Hensleigh and his wife had a dinner party for them and invited Charles, Erasmus, and Thomas and Jane Carlyle.
    As her daughter later described her, Emma was pretty, with gray eyes, a clear complexion, a nice high forehead, a firm chin, a straight nose, and beautiful long, thick brown hair. She wore gold spectacles. She was of medium height, had nice shoulders and pretty hands and arms. She didn’t care much for fashion or dressing up (her aunts often chided her about her clothes), but she was graceful and carried herself well. Like her father, she could be reserved; she was unflappable and good-natured. She was very smart, and extremely well-read, but she wasn’t after intellectual pursuits in the same way the Horner girls were. She was content to stay home and help her sister Elizabeth take care of their aging parents.
    Perhaps Charles would find his “constant companion” at Maer. He had decided he wasn’t that interested in marrying any of the Horner girls. They were too much for him—too literary and intellectual, too clever in spades. It made sense to stay in the family, anyway. And maybe a woman who had grown up in such a free and liberal household as the Wedgwoods’ would be understanding about his religious doubts, if he could not manage to conceal them. Of the five Wedgwood girls, there were only two single ones left living at Maer Hall. One was Elizabeth, a tiny woman with a curved spine. She was sixteen years older than Charles. The other was Emma. Was she the right wife for him?
    Emma had definitely noticed Charles on that London visit. At dinner in her brother Hensleigh’s dining room, she thought Charles lively, funny, and smart. Although she had already turned down a handful of marriage proposals and wasnot looking for a husband, Charles made an impression on her. But she didn’t think he liked her especially. “I was not the least sure of his