Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/292

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

I am pleased to find that my letter had so much effect on you, and that De Courcy is certainly your Let me hear from you as soon as you arrive, and in particular tell me what you mean to do with Mainwaring. It is impossible to say when I shall be able to come to you; my confinement must be great. It is such an abominable trick to be ill here instead of at Bath that I can scarcely command myself at all. At Bath his old aunts would have nursed him, but here it all falls upon mc; and he bears pain with such patience that I have not the common excuse for losing my temper.

Yours ever,

ALICIA.

XXIX.

Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson.

Upper Seymour Street,

My dear Alicia,-There needed not this last fit of the gout to make me detest Mr. Johnson, but now the extent of my aversion is not to be estimated. To have you confined as nurse in his apartment! My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agrecable, too young to die. I arrived last night about five, had scarcely swallowed my dinner when Mainwaring made his appearance. I will not dissemble what real pleasure his sight afforded me, nor how strongly I felt the contrast between his person