orge's own marriage,
his descendants were to be 'founder's kin.' He returned to teach at his
old school, occupying the post of second master there in 1758, and in
the next year he was again in residence at Oxford, where his good looks
gained for him the name of 'the handsome proctor.' In 1760 he took
Orders, and in 1761 was presented by Mr. Knight of Godmersham--who had
married a descendant of his great-aunt, Jane Stringer--to the living of
Steventon, near Overton in Hampshire. It was a time of laxity in the
Church, and George Austen (though he afterwards became an excellent
parish-priest) does not seem to have resided or done duty at Steventon
before the year 1764, when his marriage to Cassandra Leigh must have
made the rectory appear a desirable home to which to bring his bride.

Before we say anything of the Leighs, a few sentences must be devoted to
George Austen's relations of the half-blood--the Walters. With his
mother's son by her first husband, William Hampson Walter, he remained
on intimate terms. A good many letters are extant which passed between
the Austens and the Walters during the early married life of the former,
the last of them containing the news of the birth of Jane. Besides this,
William Walter's daughter, 'Phila,' was a constant correspondent of
George Austen's niece Eliza.

The Walter family settled in Lincolnshire, where they have held Church
preferment, and have also been well known in the world of sport. Phila's
brother James seems to have been at the same time an exemplary parson,
beloved by his flock, and also a sort of 'Jack Russell,' and is said to
have met his death in the hunting-field, by falling into a snow-drift,
at the age of eighty-four. His son Henry distinguished himself in a more
academical manner. He was second wrangler in 1806, and a Fellow of St.
John's. Nor was he only a mathematician; for in June 1813 Jane Austen
met a young man named Wilkes, an undergraduate of St. John's, who spoke
very highly of Walter as a scholar; he said he was considered the best
classic at Cambridge. She adds: 'How such a report would have interested
my father!' Henry Walter was at one time tutor at Haileybury, and was
also a beneficed clergyman. He was known at Court; indeed, it is said
that, while he declined higher preferment for himself, he was consulted
by George IV and William IV on the selection of bishops.

The wife that George Austen chose belonged to the somewhat large clan of
the Leighs