cultivate a passable romance upon scanty soil. Miss Austen was pretty, she was gay, she possessed an indefinable attraction for men, and she was in turn attracted by them, as a healthy-minded, happy-hearted girl should be. Her letters to Cassandra are full of amusing confidences on the subject—confidences far too amusing, in fact, to give any sign or token of genuine feeling beyond. She writes with buoyant cheerfulness about Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom she "does not care sixpence," yet prefers him to all other competitors, who must have ranked pitiably low in the scale. "I am almost afraid," she confesses, "to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you."
Not without grave faults, though, it would
