Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/41

 quite bear out their praise. "Fair and handsome, slight and elegant," Sir Egerton Brydges calls her at this time, and the first portrait, which shows her in early youth, depicts a tall, slight girl, whose graceful élancé figure is not wholly disfigured, even by the ugly, unbecoming dress of the day. She stands with a fan in her hand, in the attitude of one just about to speak; the head, well set and poised, is thrown slightly back, the brilliant beautiful eyes look laughingly out as if enjoying some gay speech, and the full lips are slightly parted, as if ready with a playful rejoinder. The hair is cut short, but waves in thick curls all over her head, and figure and expression alike give the idea of her being, like her own Emma Woodhouse, "the picture of health." The brilliant expression would be attractive in a plainer face, and, looking at the radiant girl, one is tempted to wonder how Jane Austen could have remained Jane Austen all her life, but in truth no one would have found it easy to persuade her into matrimony. Her taste was fastidious, her home a very happy one, and her heart and mind abundantly occupied, so that the admiration she received amused more than it touched her, and she took good care that it should not usually go beyond very reasonable limits.

One admirer, who figures rather conspicuously in some of her earlier letters, subsequently achieved considerable eminence in life; this was Mr. Thomas Lefroy, afterwards Chief Justice of Ireland. He came into Hampshire one Christmas (when Jane was just twenty) on a visit to his aunt, Mrs. Lefroy, whose husband was the Rector of Asbe, the parish adjoining Steventon. This Mrs. Lefroy was a brilliant woman, with much charm of manner; she was greatly attached to Jane, who looked up to her with all a