nd readers of
_Persuasion_ will remember the scene in the fields near Uppercross where
Anne hears a conversation about herself carried on by Captain Wentworth
and Louisa Musgrove. The writer had possibly intended to introduce a
similar scene into _Mansfield Park_, for, in a letter to her sister, of
January 29, 1813, when turning from _Pride and Prejudice_ to a new
subject, she says: 'If you could discover whether Northamptonshire is a
country of hedgerows I should be glad again.' Presumably, her question
was answered in the negative, and her scrupulous desire for accuracy did
not allow of her making use of the intended device.

Steventon Church 'might have appeared mean and uninteresting to an
ordinary observer; but the adept in church architecture would have
known that it must have stood there some seven centuries, and would
have found beauty in the very narrow Early English windows, as well as
in the general proportions of its little chancel; while its solitary
position, far from the hum of the village, and within sight of no
habitation, except a glimpse of the grey manor-house through its
circling green of sycamores, has in it something solemn and appropriate
to the last resting-place of the silent dead. Sweet violets, both purple
and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. One may imagine for
how many centuries the ancestors of those little flowers have occupied
that undisturbed sunny nook, and may think how few living families can
boast of as ancient a tenure of their land. Large elms protrude their
rough branches; old hawthorns shed their annual blossoms over the
graves; and the hollow yew-tree must be at least coeval with the church.
But whatever may be the beauties or defects of the surrounding scenery,
this was the residence of Jane Austen for twenty-four years. This was
the cradle of her genius. These were the first objects which inspired
her young heart with a sense of the beauties of nature. In strolls along
these wood-walks, thick-coming fancies rose to her mind, and gradually
assumed the forms in which they came forth to the world. In that simple
church she brought them all into subjection to the piety which ruled her
in life and supported her in death.'

To this description of the surroundings of the home, given by the author
of the _Memoir_, whose own home it was through childhood and boyhood, we
may add a few sentences respecting its interior as it appeared to his
sister, Mrs. Lefroy. She spea