STEVENTON, Thursday (January 8).
MY DEAR CASSANDRA,--The "perhaps" which concluded my last letter being
only a "perhaps," will not occasion your being overpowered with
surprise, I dare say, if you should receive this before Tuesday, which,
unless circumstances are very perverse, will be the case. I received
yours with much general philanthropy, and still more peculiar good-will,
two days ago; and I suppose I need not tell you that it was very long,
being written on a foolscap sheet, and very entertaining, being written
by you.
Mr. Payne has been dead long enough for Henry to be out of mourning for
him before his last visit, though we knew nothing of it till about that
time. Why he died, or of what complaint, or to what noblemen he
bequeathed his four daughters in marriage, we have not heard.
I am glad that the Wildmans are going to give a ball, and hope you will
not fail to benefit both yourself and me by laying out a few kisses in
the purchase of a frank. I believe you are right in proposing to delay
the cambric muslin, and I submit with a kind of voluntary reluctance.
Mr. Peter Debary has declined Deane curacy; he wishes to be settled near
London. A foolish reason! as if Deane were not near London in comparison
of Exeter or York. Take the whole world through, and he will find many
more places at a greater distance from London than Deane than he will at
a less. What does he think of Glencoe or Lake Katherine?
I feel rather indignant that any possible objection should be raised
against so valuable a piece of preferment, so delightful a
situation!--that Deane should not be universally allowed to be as near
the metropolis as any other country villages. As this is the case,
however, as Mr. Peter Debary has shown himself a Peter in the blackest
sense of the word, we are obliged to look elsewhere for an heir; and my
father has thought it a necessary compliment to James Digweed to offer
the curacy to him, though without considering it as either a desirable
or an eligible situation for him. Unless he is in love with Miss Lyford,
I think he had better not be settled exactly in this neighborhood; and
unless he is very much in love with her indeed, he is not likely to
think a salary of 50_l._ equal in value or efficiency to one of 75_l._
Were you indeed to be considered as one of the fixtures of the
house!--but you were never actually erected in it either by Mr. Egerton
Brydges or Mrs. Lloyd. . . .
You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has
shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have
generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to
Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.
Sidmouth is now talked of as our summer abode. Get all the information,
therefore, about it that you can from Mrs. C. Cage.
My father's old ministers are already deserting him to pay their court
to his son. The brown mare, which, as well as the black, was to devolve
on James at our removal, has not had patience to wait for that, and has
settled herself even now at Deane. The death of Hugh Capet, which, like
that of Mr. Skipsey, though undesired, was not wholly unexpected, being
purposely effected, has made the immediate possession of the mare very
convenient, and everything else I suppose will be seized by degrees in
the same manner. Martha and I work at the books every day.
Yours affectionately, J. A.
Miss AUSTEN,
Godmersham Park, Faversham, Kent.