Page:Fragment of a novel written by Jane Austen.pdf/16

 written in pencil, and afterwards inked over. The passage so written is that printed on pp. 99-101 of this edition (from cried Lady D— to so seriously that Charlotte). The author of the Memoir writes, on this point:

The chief part of this manuscript is written in her usual firm and neat hand, but some of the latter pages seem to have been first traced in pencil, probably when she was too weak to sit long at her desk, and written over in ink afterwards.

But the manuscript as such does not bear out this implication of a progressive decline. The place at which pencil was used is in fact not much later than the middle; and the latter part of the manuscript shows no change in legibility or in accuracy.