LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN
through Croydon and Kingston, which will be much pleasanter than any other way; but he is decidedly for Clapham and Battersea. God bless you all!
I flatter myself that itty Dordy will not forget me at least under a week. Kiss him for me.
Miss Austen, Godmersham Park,
Faversham.
IX
My dear Cassandra,
Your letter was a most agreeable surprise to me to-day, and I have taken a long sheet of paper to show my gratitude.
We arrived here yesterday between four and five, but I cannot send you quite so triumphant an account of our last day′s journey as of the first and second. Soon after I had finished my letter from Staines, my mother began to suffer from the exercise or fatigue of travelling, and she was a good deal indisposed. She had not a very good night at Staines, but bore her journey better than I had expected, and at Basingstoke, where we stopped more than half an hour, received
much comfort from a mess of broth and
