LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN
strengthened her in her resolution to give up the property to him, and that she considered there were duties attaching to the possession of landed property which could not be discharged by a woman so well as by a man. She reminds him how that the poor had always been liberally treated by the Godmersham family, and expresses her happiness at feeling that he will do his duty in this and other respects, and that she shall spend the rest of her days near enough to see much of him and his wife. I am quite sure that my grandfather was most gratefully fond of Mrs. Knight, and considered her conduct, as indeed it was, an act of affectionate generosity.
VIII
"Bull and George," Dartford:
Wednesday (October 24).
My dear Cassandra,
You have already heard from Daniel, I conclude, in what excellent time we reached and quitted Sittingbourne, and how very well my mother bore her journey thither. I am now able to send you a continuation of the same good account of her. She was very little fatigued on her arrival at this place, has been refreshed by a
