LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN
have two sheets of your drawing-paper, but they shan’t have any more; there are not above three or four left, besides one of a smaller and richer sort. Perhaps you may want some more if you come through town in your return, or rather buy some more, for your wanting it will not depend on your coming through town, I imagine.
I have just heard from Martha and Frank: his letter was written on November 12. All well and nothing particular.
Miss Austen, Godmersham Park,
Faversham.
XIV
My dear Cassandra,
I have got some pleasant news for you which I am eager to communicate, and therefore begin my letter sooner, though I shall not send it sooner than usual.
Admiral Gambier, in reply to my father’s application, writes as follows: — “As it is usual to keep young officers in small vessels, it being most proper on account of their inexperience, and it being also a situation where they are more in the way of learning their duty, your son has been
continued in the ‘Scorpion’; but I have men-
