Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/214

 very pale, her voice was weak and low, and there was about her a general appearance of debility and suffering, but I have been told that she never had much acute pain. She was not equal to the exertion of talking to us, and our visit to the sick-room was a very short one, Aunt Cassandra soon taking us away, I do not suppose we stayed a quarter of an hour; and I never saw Aunt Jane again."

Still she continued cheerful, though she can have had by this time little hope of recovery; and in April her brother James writes to his daughter that, "I was happy to have a good account of herself written by her own hand in a letter from your Aunt Jane, but all who love, and that is all who know her, must be anxious on her account." By this time she had given up her novel-writing, so that she must have felt herself weak indeed.

In May she and her sister moved into lodgings in Winchester that she might be within reach of an eminent medical man living there; but he had little hope of saving her, though, after going there, she seemed for a time rather stronger, and wrote to one of her nephews, "There is no better way, my dearest E, of thanking you for your affectionate concern for me during my illness than by telling you myself as soon as possible that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my hand-writing; neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I gain strength very fast. I am now out of bed from nine in the morning to ten at night; upon the sofa, it is true, but I eat my meals with aunt Cassandra in a rational way, and can employ myself and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford says he will cure me; and, if he fails, I shall draw up a