ke _Mr._
S.[264] very much.

* * * * *

Poor Dr. Isham is obliged to admire _P. and P._,
and to send me word that he is sure he shall not
like Madame D'Arblay's new novel[265] half so
well. Mrs. C[ooke] invented it all, of course. He
desires his compliments to you and my mother.

* * * * *

I am now alone in the library, mistress of all I
survey; at least I may say so, and repeat the
whole poem if I like it, without offence to
anybody.

I have _this_ moment seen Mrs. Driver driven up
to the kitchen door. I cannot close with a grander
circumstance or greater wit.

Yours affectionately,
J. A.
Miss Austen, Chawton.

The next of Jane's surviving letters was addressed to her brother Frank.

Godmersham Park [September 25, 1813].[266]

MY DEAREST FRANK,--The 11th of this month brought
me your letter, and I assure you I thought it very
well worth its two and three-pence. I am very much
obliged to you for filling me so long a sheet of
paper; you are a good one to traffic with in that
way, you pay most liberally; my letter was a
scratch of a note compared to yours, and then you
write so even, so clear, both in style and
penmanship, so much to the point, and give so much
intelligence, that it is enough to kill one. I am
sorry Sweden is so poor, and my riddle so bad. The
idea of a fashionable bathing-place in
Mecklenberg! How can people pretend to be
fashionable or to bathe out of England? Rostock
market makes one's mouth water; our cheapest
butcher's meat is double the price of theirs;
nothing under nine-pence all this summer, and I
believe upon recollection nothing under ten-pence.
Bread has sunk and is likely to sink more, which
we hope may make meat sink too. But I have no
occasion to think of the price of bread or of meat
where I am now; let me shake off vulgar cares and
conform to the happy indifference of East Kent
wealth. I wonder whether you and the King