ear. We shall certainly
make you a visit as soon as possible after the
peace takes place.

In the same letter she mentions how gay the season has been, on account
of the birth of the Dauphin, and of the fetes which accompanied that
event. Neither she nor her 'numerous and brilliant acquaintance' had
any prevision of the terrible days that awaited all their order, nor any
knowledge of the existence of the irresistible forces which were soon to
overwhelm them, and to put a tragical end to every hope cherished by the
bride, except that of rejoining her English friends. For the present,
she led a life of pleasure and gaiety; but that it did not make her
forgetful of Steventon is shown by another letter to Phila, dated May 7,
1784:--

I experienced much pleasure from the account you
gave me of my Uncle Geo: Austen's family; each of
my cousins seems to be everything their parents
could wish them; such intelligence would have
given me the completest satisfaction had it not
been accompanied by the melancholy news of the
death of the valuable Mrs. Cooper. I sincerely
lament her loss and sympathize with the grief it
must have occasioned. Both Mama and myself were
very apprehensive of the influence of this event
on my aunt's health, but fortunately the last
accounts from Steventon assure us that the whole
family continue well.

On January 19, 1786, she again writes on the subject of a visit to
England, about which she hesitates, partly because of the state of her
health, and partly because she was expecting a long visit from her
cousin, James Austen (eldest son of George Austen)--a young man who,
having completed his undergraduate residence at Oxford, was spending
some months in France.

To England, however, she came, hoping to see much of the Austen family.
'I mean,' she writes, 'to spend a very few days in London, and, if my
health allows me, immediately to pay a visit to Steventon, because my
uncle informs us that Midsummer and Christmas are the only seasons when
his mansion is sufficiently at liberty to admit of his receiving his
friends.' The rectory was certainly too small a 'mansion' to contain the
Comtesse and her mother, in addition to its own large family party and
various pupils; so it is to be hoped that Eliza carried out her project
in June, before she was otherwi