from Edward to-morrow, and
from you soon afterwards. How happy they are at Godmersham now! I
shall be very glad of a letter from Ibthorp, that I may know how you
all are, but particularly yourself. This is nice weather for Mrs. J.
Austen's going to Speen, and I hope she will have a pleasant visit
there. I expect a prodigious account of the christening dinner;
perhaps it brought you at last into the company of Miss Dundas again.

'_Tuesday_.--I received your letter last night, and wish it may be
soon followed by another to say that all is over; but I cannot help
thinking that nature will struggle again, and produce a revival. Poor
woman! May her end be peaceful and easy as the exit we have
witnessed! And I dare say it will. If there is no revival, suffering
must be all over; even the consciousness of existence, I suppose, was
gone when you wrote. The nonsense I have been writing in this and in
my last letter seems out of place at such a time, but I will not mind
it; it will do you no harm, and nobody else will be attacked by it. I
am heartily glad that you can speak so comfortably of your own health
and looks, though I can scarcely comprehend the latter being really
approved. Could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate
change? You were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed
sensible of it. Is there a charm in a hack postchaise? But if there
were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. I am much
obliged to you for the time and trouble you have bestowed on Mary's
cap, and am glad it pleases her; but it will prove a useless gift at
present, I suppose. Will not she leave Ibthorp on her mother's death?
As a companion you are all that Martha can be supposed to want, and in
that light, under these circumstances, your visit will indeed have
been well timed.

'_Thursday_.--I was not able to go on yesterday; all my wit and
leisure were bestowed on letters to Charles and Henry. To the former
I wrote in consequence of my mother's having seen in the papers that
the "Urania" was waiting at Portsmouth for the convoy for Halifax.
This is nice, as it is only three weeks ago that you wrote by the
"Camilla." I wrote to Henry because I had a letter from him in which
he desired to hear from me very soon. His to me was most affectionate
and kind, as well as entertaining; there is no merit to