Part 31 (1/2)

You cannot iine--what a nice e have round the orchard The row of beech look very well indeed, and so does the young quickset hedge in the garden I hear to-day that an apricot has been detected on one of the trees My mother is perfectly convinced _now_ that she shall not be overpowered by her cleft-wood, and I believe would rather have more than less

God bless you, and I hope June will find you well, and bring us together

Thursday [June 6]

[Anna] does not return fro, and I doubt not has had plenty of the miscellaneous, unsettled sort of happiness which seems to suit her best We hear fros, that she was very an pease[231] on Sunday, but our gatherings are very s in the _Lady of the Lake_ Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe; had _you_ been at hoooseberries and fewer currants than I thought at first We must buy currants for our wine

I had just left off writing and put onto Alton, when Anna and her friend Harriot called in their way thither, so ent together Their business was to provide 's death, and ht for her I areat deal to do, and withoutit

Yours affectionately, J A

The printing of _Sense and Sensibility_ cannot have been very rapid, for in Septe entry in fanny Austen's diary: 'Letter fro ould not mention that Aunt Jane wrote _Sense and Sensibility_' This looks as if it were still on the eve of publication, and it was not in fact advertised until October 31

FOOTNOTES:

[207] _Memoir_, p 80

[208] _Ibid_ p 196

[209] See pp 275, 285

[210] We are told in the biographical notice prefixed to Bentley's edition of the novels in 1833, that though Jane, when her authorshi+p was an open secret, was once asked by a stranger to join a literary party at which Madame de Stael would be present, she immediately declined the invitation

[211] _Memoir_, p 89

[212] She had experienced a similar shock before in the sudden death, by accident, of her cousin, Jane Williament is based on the idea that _Elinor and Marianne_ (ad of the same relation to _Sense and Sensibility_ that _First Impressions_ did to _Pride and Prejudice_

[214] _Jane Austen and her Country-house Comedy_, by W H Helm

[215] Her cousin, Mary Cooke

[216] This may have been Bullock's Natural History Museum, at 22 Piccadilly See _Notes and Queries_, 11 Sv 514

[217] In Pall Mall

[218] Theophilus Cooke

[219] See p 6

[220] White Friars, Canterbury--the residence of Mrs Knight

[221] He took coain concerned in the Napoleonic Wars _Sailor Brothers_ p 226