s together.

Thursday [June 6].

[Anna] does not return from Faringdon till this
evening, and I doubt not has had plenty of the
miscellaneous, unsettled sort of happiness which
seems to suit her best. We hear from Miss Benn,
who was on the Common with the Prowtings, that she
was very much admired by the gentlemen in general.

* * * * *

We began pease[231] on Sunday, but our gatherings
are very small, not at all like the gathering in
the _Lady of the Lake_. Yesterday I had the
agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet
strawberries quite ripe; had _you_ been at home,
this would have been a pleasure lost. There are
more gooseberries and fewer currants than I
thought at first. We must buy currants for our
wine.

* * * * *

I had just left off writing and put on my things
for walking to Alton, when Anna and her friend
Harriot called in their way thither, so we went
together. Their business was to provide mourning
against the King's death, and my mother has had a
bombasin bought for her. I am not sorry to be back
again, for the young ladies had a great deal to
do, and without much method in doing it.

Yours affectionately,
J. A.

The printing of _Sense and Sensibility_ cannot have been very rapid, for
in September 28 there is the following entry in Fanny Austen's diary:
'Letter from At. Cass to beg we would 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 authorship 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