ephew, James, son of the Rev. Thomas
Leigh, on condition that he took the surname and arms of Perrot.[11]
Accordingly, on the death of Mr. Thomas Perrot at the beginning of 1751,
James Leigh became James Leigh Perrot of Northleigh. His two sisters,
Jane and Cassandra, also profited by the kindness of their great-aunt,
who left two hundred pounds to each. Another legacy which filtered
through the Walkers from the Perrots to the Austens was the advantage of
being 'kin' to the Founder of St. John's College, Oxford--Sir Thomas
White--an advantage of which several members of the family availed
themselves.

Northleigh, for some reason or other, did not suit its new owner. He
pulled down the mansion and sold the estate to the Duke of Marlborough,
buying for himself a property at Hare Hatch on the Bath Road, midway
between Maidenhead and Reading. We shall meet him again, and his devoted
wife, Jane Cholmeley; and we shall see a remarkable instance of his
steadfast love for her.

George Austen perhaps met his future wife at the house of her uncle, the
Master of Balliol, but no particulars of the courtship have survived.
The marriage took place at Walcot Church, Bath, on April 26, 1764, the
bride's father having died at Bath only a short time before. Two
circumstances connected with their brief honeymoon--which consisted only
of a journey from Bath to Steventon, broken by one day's halt at
Andover--may be mentioned. The bride's 'going-away' dress seems to have
been a scarlet riding-habit, whose future adventures were not
uninteresting; and the pair are believed to have had an unusual
companion for such an occasion--namely, a small boy, six years old, the
only son of Warren Hastings by his first wife. We are told that he was
committed to the charge of Mr. Austen when he was sent over to England
in 1761, and we shall see later that there was a reason for this
connexion; but a three-year-old boy is a curious charge for a bachelor,
and poor little George must have wanted a nurse rather than a tutor. In
any case, he came under Mrs. Austen's maternal care, who afterwards
mourned for his early death 'as if he had been a child of her own.'[12]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _History of Kent._

[5] For further particulars respecting the earlier Austens, we venture
to refer our readers to _Chawton Manor and its Owners_, chap. vii.

[6] This almost exclusive care of the old man for his eldest grandson
may possibly have been the model for the acti