steventon, thursday (january 8).
my dear cassandra,—the "perhaps" which concluded my last letter being only a "perhaps," will not occasion your being overpowered with surprise, i dare say, if you should receive this before tuesday, which, unless circumstances are very perverse, will be the case. i received yours with much general philanthropy, and still more peculiar good-will, two days ago; and i suppose i need not tell you that it was very long, being written on a foolscap sheet, and very entertaining, being written by you.
mr. payne has been dead long enough for henry to be out of mourning for him before his last visit, though we knew nothing of it till about that time. why he died, or of what complaint, or to what noblemen he bequeathed his four daughters in marriage, we have not heard.
i am glad that the wildmans are going to give[80] a ball, and hope you will not fail to benefit both yourself and me by laying out a few kisses in the purchase of a frank. i believe you are right in proposing to delay the cambric muslin, and i submit with a kind of voluntary reluctance.
mr. peter debary has declined deane curacy; he wishes to be settled near london. a foolish reason! as if deane were not near london in comparison of exeter or york. take the whole world through, and he will find many more places at a greater distance from london than deane than he will at a less. what does he think of glencoe or lake katherine?
i feel rather indignant that any possible objection should be raised against so valuable a piece of preferment, so delightful a situation!—that deane should not be universally allowed to be as near the metropolis as any other country villages. as this is the case, however, as mr. peter debary has shown himself a peter in the blackest sense of the word, we are obliged to look elsewhere for an heir; and my father has thought it a necessary compliment to james digweed to offer the curacy to him, though without considering it as either a desirable or an eligible situation for him. unless he is in love with miss lyford, i think he had better not be settled exactly in this neighborhood; and unless he is very much in love with her indeed, he is not likely to think a salary of 50l. equal in value or efficiency to one of 75l.
[81]
were you indeed to be considered as one of the fixtures of the house!—but you were never actually erected in it either by mr. egerton brydges or mrs. lloyd....
you are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as i do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, i shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to anna till the first thought of it has been my own.
sidmouth is now talked of as our summer abode. get all the information, therefore, about it that you can from mrs. c. cage.
my father's old ministers are already deserting him to pay their court to his son. the brown mare, which, as well as the black, was to devolve on james at our removal, has not had patience to wait for that, and has settled herself even now at deane. the death of hugh capet, which, like that of mr. skipsey, though undesired, was not wholly unexpected, being purposely effected, has made the immediate possession of the mare very convenient, and everything else i suppose will be seized by degrees in the same manner. martha and i work at the books every day.
yours affectionately, j. a.
miss austen,
godmersham park, faversham, kent.
