Page:Austen - Novels and Letters 12.djvu/33

 you at the time, but you shall have it as often as you like. My mother wrote to her a week ago.

Martha's rug is just ﬁnished, and looks well, though not quite so well as I had hoped. I see no fault in the border, but the middle is dingy. My mother desires me to say that she will knit one for you as soon as you return to choose the colours and pattern.

I am sorry I have affronted you on the subject of Mr. Moore, but I do not mean ever to like him; and as to pitying a young woman merely because she cannot live in two places at the same time, and at once enjoy the comforts of being married and single, I shall not attempt it, even for Harriet. You see I have a spirit as well as yourself.

Frank and Mary cannot at all approve of your not being at home in time to help them in their ﬁnishing purchases, and desire me to say that, if you are not, they will be as spiteful as possible, and choose everything in the style most likely to vex you—knives that will not cut, glasses that will not hold, a sofa without a seat, and a bookcase without shelves.

Our garden is putting in order by a man who bears a remarkably good character, has a very ﬁne complexion, and asks something less than the ﬁrst. The shrubs which border the gravel walk,