on of old Mr. Dashwood at
the beginning of _Sense and Sensibility_.

[7] We are allowed to quote freely from a manuscript _History of the
Leigh Family of Adlestrop_, written in 1788; some part of which appeared
in an article written by the Hon. Agnes Leigh and published in the
_National Review_ for April 1907.

[8] Brother both of the Duke of Chandos and of Mrs. Leigh.

[9] _Memoir_, p. 5.

[10] The author of the _Memoir_ remarks on the fact that the Leigh arms
were placed on the front of Balliol towards Broad Street, now pulled
down. He did not live to see the same arms occupy a similar place on the
new buildings at King's College, Cambridge, erected when his son
Augustus was Provost.

[11] The Perrots seem to have set great store by their armorial
bearings: at least we are told that two branches of them lived at
Northleigh at the same time in the eighteenth century, hardly on
speaking terms with each other, and that one cause of quarrel was a
difference of opinion as to whether the three 'pears'--which, in punning
heraldry, formed a part of their coat of arms--were to be silver or
gold.

[12] In the absence of any information as to where George Hastings died
or was buried, it is at present impossible to be sure about the details
of this interesting tradition.

CHAPTER II

STEVENTON

1764-1785

Steventon is a small village tucked away among the Hampshire Downs,
about seven miles south of Basingstoke. It is now looked down upon at
close quarters by the South-Western Railway, but, at the time of which
we are writing, it was almost equidistant from two main roads: one
running from Basingstoke to Andover, which would be joined at Deane
Gate, the other from Basingstoke to Winchester, joined at Popham Lane.
Communication with London was maintained--at any rate, in 1800--by two
coaches that ran each night through Deane Gate. It does not appear,
however, to have been by any means certain that an unexpected traveller
would get a place in either of them.[13]

The surrounding country is certainly not picturesque; it presents no
grand or extensive views: the features, however, being small rather than
plain.[14] It is, in fact, an undulating district whose hills have no
marked character, and the poverty of whose soil prevents the timber from
attaining a great size. We need not therefore be surprised to hear that
when Cassandra Leigh saw the place for the first time, just before her
marriage, she should think