nderness of a mother, and
never have you appeared more deserving of
affection than at this time; to reward your merit,
therefore, and to place you in a situation where
your many excellent qualities will be call'd forth
and render'd useful to the neighbourhood is the
fondest wish of my heart. Many circumstances
attached to large landed possessions, highly
gratifying to a man, are entirely lost on me at
present; but when I see you in enjoyment of them,
I shall, if possible, feel my gratitude to my
beloved husband redoubled, for having placed in my
hands the power of bestowing happiness on one so
very dear to me. If my income had not been
sufficient to enable us both to live in affluence
I should never have proposed this plan, for
nothing would have given me more pain than to have
seen a rigid economy take the place of that
liberality which the poor have always experienced
from the family; but with the income I have
assigned you, I trust, my dear Edward, you will
feel yourself rich. . . . You may assure yourself and
my dear Lizzie, that the pain I shall feel in
quitting this dear place will no longer be
remembered when I see you in possession of it. My
attachment to it can, I think, only cease with my
life; but if I am near enough to be your frequent
daily visitor and within reach of the sight of you
and your boys and Lizzie and her girls, I trust I
shall be as happy, perhaps happier, than I am
now. . . .

Your most sincere friend,
C. K.

Meanwhile, Francis Austen had made a good start in his profession. Going
out to the East Indies, according to the custom of those days as a
'volunteer,' he became a midshipman, but remained one for four years
only. Promotion--'that long thought of, dearly earned, and justly valued
blessing'--was bestowed upon him two years sooner than it fell to the
lot of William Price in _Mansfield Park_, and he became a lieutenant at
the age of seventeen--a sufficient testimony to that steadiness of
character which distinguished him throughout the course of a very long
life. As lieutenant he remained another yea