'J. AUSTEN.

'The real object of this letter is to ask you for a receipt, but I
thought it genteel not to let it appear early. We remember some
excellent orange wine at Manydown, made from Seville oranges, entirely
or chiefly. I should be very much obliged to you for the receipt, if
you can command it within a few weeks.'

On the day before, January 23rd, she had written to her niece in the same
hopeful tone: 'I feel myself getting stronger than I was, and can so
perfectly walk _to_ Alton, _or_ back again without fatigue, that I hope
to be able to do _both_ when summer comes.'

Alas! summer came to her only on her deathbed. March 17th is the last
date to be found in the manuscript on which she was engaged; and as the
watch of the drowned man indicates the time of his death, so does this
final date seem to fix the period when her mind could no longer pursue
its accustomed course.

And here I cannot do better than quote the words of the niece to whose
private records of her aunt's life and character I have been so often
indebted:--

'I do not know how early the alarming symptoms of her malady came on.
It was in the following March that I had the first idea of her being
seriously ill. It had been settled that about the end of that month,
or the beginning of April, I should spend a few days at Chawton, in
the absence of my father and mother, who were just then engaged with
Mrs. Leigh Perrot in arranging her late husband's affairs; but Aunt
Jane became too ill to have me in the house, and so I went instead to