Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/252

 convinced by my full and solemn assurance that your fears have been most idly created, you will deeply mortify and distress me. I am, &c., &c., R. DE COURCY.

XV. Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. Churchhill.

My dear Mother, I return you Reginald's letter, and rejoice with all my heart that my father is made easy by it: tell him so, with my congratulations ; but, between ourselves, I must own it has only convinced me of my brother's having no present intention of marrying Lady Susan, not that he is in no danger of doing so three months hence. He gives a very plausible account of her behaviour at Langford; I wish it may be true, but his intelligence must come from herself, and I am less disposed to believe it than to lament the degree of intimacy subsisting between them implied by the discussion of such a subject. I am sorry to have incurred his displeasure, but can expect nothing better while he is so very eager in Lady Susan's justification. He is very severe against me indeed, and yet I hope I have not been hasty in my judgment of her. Poor woman! though I have reasons enough for my dislike, I cannot help pitying her at present, as she is in real distress, and with too much cause. She had this morning a letter from the lady with whom she has