independent of the original manner in which the _denouement_ is brought
about, the pictures of Charles Musgrove's good-natured boyishness and of
his wife's jealous selfishness would have been incomplete without these
finishing strokes. The cancelled chapter exists in manuscript. It is
certainly inferior to the two which were substituted for it: but it was
such as some writers and some readers might have been contented with; and
it contained touches which scarcely any other hand could have given, the
suppression of which may be almost a matter of regret. {167}

The following letter was addressed to her friend Miss Bigg, then staying
at Streatham with her sister, the wife of the Reverend Herbert Hill,
uncle of Robert Southey. It appears to have been written three days
before she began her last work, which will be noticed in another chapter;
and shows that she was not at that time aware of the serious nature of
her malady:--

'Chawton, January 24, 1817.

'MY DEAR ALETHEA,--I think it time there should be a little writing
between us, though I believe the epistolary debt is on _your_ side,
and I hope this will find all the Streatham party well, neither
carried away by the flood, nor rheumatic through the damps. Such mild
weather is, you know, delightful to _us_, and though we have a great
many ponds, and a fine running stream through the meadows on the other
side of the road, it is nothing but what beautifies us and does to
talk of. _I_ have certainly gained strength through the winter and am
not far from being well; and I think I understand my own case now so
much better than I did, as to be able by care to keep off any serious
return of illness. I am convinced that _bile_ is at the bottom of all
I have suffered, which makes it easy to know how to treat myself. You