till her hand was weary.  She sometimes found a resource in that simple game, when unable, from weakness in her eyes, to read or write long together.  A specimen of her clear strong handwriting is here given.  Happy would the compositors for the press be if they had always so legible a manuscript to work from.  But the writing was not the only part of her letters which showed superior handiwork.  In those days there was an art in folding and sealing.  No adhesive envelopes made all easy.  Some people’s letters always looked loose and untidy; but her paper was sure to take the right folds, and her sealing-wax to drop into the right place.  Her needlework both plain and ornamental was excellent, and might almost have put a sewing machine to shame.  She was considered especially great in satin stitch.  She spent much time in these occupations, and some of her merriest talk was over clothes which she and her companions were making, sometimes for themselves, and sometimes for the poor.  There still remains a curious specimen of her needlework made for a sister-in-law, my mother.  In a very small bag is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with minikin needles and fine thread.  In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are these lines:—­

   This little bag, I hope, will prove
      To be not vainly made;
   For should you thread and needles want,
      It will afford you aid.

   And, as we are about to part,
      ’T will serve another end: 
   For, when you look upon this bag,
      You’ll recollect your friend.

It is the kind of article that some benevolent fairy might be supposed to give as a reward to a diligent little girl.  The whole is of flowered silk, and having been never used and carefully preserved, it is as fresh and bright as when it was first made seventy years ago; and shows that the same hand which painted so exquisitely with the pen could work as delicately with the needle.

I have collected some of the bright qualities which shone, as it were, on the surface of Jane Austen’s character, and attracted most notice; but underneath them there lay the strong foundations of sound sense and judgment, rectitude of principle, and delicacy of feeling, qualifying her equally to advise, assist, or amuse.  She was, in fact, as ready to comfort the unhappy, or to nurse the sick, as she was to laugh and jest with the lighthearted.  Two of her nieces were grown up, and one of them was married, before she was taken away from them.  As their minds became more matured, they were admitted into closer intimacy with her, and learned more of her graver thoughts; they know what a sympathising friend and judicious adviser they found her to be in many little difficulties and doubts of early womanhood.

I do not venture to speak of her religious principles:  that is a subject on which she herself was more inclined to think and act than to talk, and I shall imitate her reserve; satisfied to have shown how much of Christian love and humility abounded in her heart, without presuming to lay bare the roots whence those graces grew.  Some little insight, however, into these deeper recesses of the heart must be given, when we come to speak of her death.