his promises better
than the bloom of seventeen; and in addition to
this they say that she has always been remarkable
for the propriety of her behaviour distinguishing
her far above the general classes of town misses,
and rendering her of course very unpopular among
them.

* * * * *

Martha has promised to return with me, and our
plan is to have a nice black frost for walking to
Whitchurch, and then throw ourselves into a post
chaise, one upon the other, our heads hanging out
at one door and our feet at the opposite one. If
you have never heard that Miss Dawes has been
married these two months, I will mention it in my
next. Pray do not forget to go to the Canterbury
Ball; I shall despise you all most insufferably if
you do.

* * * * *

I have charged my myrmidons to send me an account
of the Basingstoke Ball; I have placed my spies at
different places that they may collect the more;
and by so doing, by sending Miss Bigg to the
Town-hall[119] itself, and posting my mother at
Steventon I hope to derive from their various
observations a good general idea of the whole.

Miss Austen, Yours ever,
Godmersham Park, J. A.
Faversham, Kent.

While Jane was away on this visit, Mr. and Mrs. Austen came to a
momentous decision--namely, to leave Steventon and retire to Bath. There
can be little doubt that the decision was a hasty one. Some of Jane's
previous letters contain details of the very considerable improvements
that her father had just begun in the Rectory garden; and we do not hear
that these improvements were concerted with the son who was to be his
successor. So hasty, indeed, did Mr. Austen's decision appear to the
Perrots that they suspected the reason to be a growing attachment
between Jane and one of the three Digweed brothers. There is not the
slightest evidence of this very improbable supposition in Jane's
letters, though she _does_ occasionally suggest that James Digweed must
be in love with Cassandra, especially when he gallantly supposed that
the two elms had fallen from grief at her absence. On the whole it seems
most probable