Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/40

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years from 1787 to 1795 which passed over Steventon Parsonage, brought few changes to the quiet life of its inmates, except such as occur in every family of young people growing-up. From boys and girls the Austens became young men and young women: James, Edward, and Henry all made their start in life, and the two elder ones married; Francis and Charles went into the navy and rose rapidly, for those were golden days for steady, ambitious young naval officers; Cassandra duly took her place as the "Miss Austen" of the family, and finally came Jane's turn to be, as she says of a friend in one of her letters, "grown up and have a fine complexion, and wear great square muslin shawls."

In other words, Jane Austen, in 1795, was "tall and twenty," and if she had not, to continue the quotation, "beaux and balls in plenty," it can only have been because the neighbourhood was not rich in these advantages; she had, however, quite as much as she wanted of both.

Those who knew her at this time speak highly of her beauty, and two portraits which still exist of her