LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN
begins to give way a little; she will not like being left behind, and will be glad to compound matters with her enraged family.
You will be sorry to hear that Marianne Mapleton’s disorder has ended fatally. She was believed out of danger on Sunday, but a sudden relapse carried her off the next day. So affectionate a family must suffer severely; and many a girl on early death has been praised into an angel, I believe, on slighter pretensions to beauty, sense, and merit than Marianne.
Mr. Bent seems bent upon being very detestable, for he values the books at only 70l. The whole world is in a conspiracy to enrich one part of our family at the expense of another. Ten shillings for Dodsley’s Poems, however, please me to the quick, and I do not care how often I sell them for as much. When Mrs. Bramston has read them through I will sell them again. I suppose you can hear nothing of your magnesia?
Friday. — You have a nice day for your journey, in whatever way it is to be performed, whether in the Debary’s coach or on your own twenty toes.
When you have made Martha’s bonnet you must make her a cloak of the same sort of materials; they are very much worn here, in different
forms — many of them just like her black silk
