Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/61

 CHAPTER III

Early Compositions—Friends at Aske—A very old Letier—Lines on the Death of Mrs. Lefroy-—-Observations on Fane Austen's Letter-writing— Letters.

I KNOW little of Jane Austen’s childhood. Her mother followed a custom, net unusual in those days, though it seems strange to us, of putting out her babies ta be nursed in a cottage in the village. The infant was daily visited by one or both of its parents, and frequently brought to them at the parsonage, but the cottage was its home, and must have remained so till it was old enough to run about and talk; for I know that one of them, in after life, used to speak of his foster mother as ‘ Movie,’ the name by which he had called her in his infancy. It may be that the contrast between the parsonage house and the best class of cottages was not quite so extreme then as it would be now, that the one was samewhat less luxurious, and the other less squalid. It would certainly seem from the results that it was a wholesome and invigorating system, for the children were all strong and healthy. Jane was probably treated like the rest in this respect. In childhood every available opportunity of instruction was made use of. According to the ideas of the time, she was well educated, though