her, as a good- hearted friendly woman.  And the Browns have been here; I find their affidavits on the table.  The “Ambuscade” reached Gibraltar on the 9th of March, and found all well; so say the papers.  We have had no letters from anybody, but we expect to hear from Edward to-morrow, and from you soon afterwards.  How happy they are at Godmersham now!  I shall be very glad of a letter from Ibthorp, that I may know how you all are, but particularly yourself.  This is nice weather for Mrs. J. Austen’s going to Speen, and I hope she will have a pleasant visit there.  I expect a prodigious account of the christening dinner; perhaps it brought you at last into the company of Miss Dundas again.

’Tuesday.—­I received your letter last night, and wish it may be soon followed by another to say that all is over; but I cannot help thinking that nature will struggle again, and produce a revival.  Poor woman!  May her end be peaceful and easy as the exit we have witnessed!  And I dare say it will.  If there is no revival, suffering must be all over; even the consciousness of existence, I suppose, was gone when you wrote.  The nonsense I have been writing in this and in my last letter seems out of place at such a time, but I will not mind it; it will do you no harm, and nobody else will be attacked by it.  I am heartily glad that you can speak so comfortably of your own health and looks, though I can scarcely comprehend the latter being really approved.  Could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change?  You were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed sensible of it.  Is there a charm in a hack postchaise?  But if there were, Mrs. Craven’s carriage might have undone it all.  I am much obliged to you for the time and trouble you have bestowed on Mary’s cap, and am glad it pleases her; but it will prove a useless gift at present, I suppose.  Will not she leave Ibthorp on her mother’s death?  As a companion you are all that Martha can be supposed to want, and in that light, under these circumstances, your visit will indeed have been well timed.

’Thursday.—­I was not able to go on yesterday; all my wit and leisure were bestowed on letters to Charles and Henry.  To the former I wrote in consequence of my mother’s having seen in the papers that the “Urania” was waiting at Portsmouth for the convoy for Halifax.  This is nice, as it is only three weeks ago that you wrote by the “Camilla.”  I wrote to Henry because I had a letter from him in which he desired to hear from me very soon.  His to me was most affectionate and kind, as well as entertaining; there is no merit to him in that; he cannot help being amusing.  He offers to meet us on the sea coast, if the plan of which Edward gave him some hint takes place.  Will not this be making the execution of such a plan more desirable and delightful than ever?  He talks of the rambles we took together last summer with pleasing affection.

   ’Yours ever,
   ‘J.  A.’