Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/326

 'Did not you know that ?’

‘How should I Isnow it? How should I know in Shropshire what is passing of that nature in Surrey ? It is not likely that circumstances of such delicacy should have made any part of the scanty communication which passed between you and me for the last fourteen years.’

‘I wonder I never mentioned it when I wrote. Since you have been at home, I have been so busy with my poor father, and our great wash, that I have had no leisure to tell you anything ; but, indeed, I concluded you knew it all. He has been very much in love with her these two years, and it is a great dis- appointment to him that he cannot always gct away to our balis; but Mr. Curtis won't often spare him, and just naw it is a sickly time at Guildford.’

‘Do you suppose Miss Edwards inclined to like him ?’

‘I am afraid not: you knew she is an only child, and will have at least ten thousand pounds.’

‘But still she may like our brother.’

‘Oh, no! The Edwards look much higher. Her father and mother would never consent to it. Sam is only a surgeon, you know. Sometimes I think she does like him. But Mary Edwards is rather prim and reserved ; I do not always know what she would be at.’

‘Unless Sam feels on sure grounds with the lady herself, it scems a pity to me that he should be encouraged to think of her at all’

‘A young man must think of somebody,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and why should not he be as lucky as