Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/62

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Cottage has long been pulled down, and as no picture of it exists we can only gather from the description that it was a fair-sized house, with a frontage near the road, but so skilfully arranged by Edward Austen that its sitting-rooms looked only upon the garden. He had planted trees and shrubs so as completely to screen the enclosure from the road (which was the highway to Winchester), and had thrown together two or three small fields to make a pleasant rambling unconventional garden, large enough for a very fair amount of ladies, exercise in those days when ladies took only moderate walks, and when Elizabeth Bennet was sneered at for walking six miles across country. The house was large enough to receive several visitors at a time, even when the home party were all there, and there was much coming and going of the brothers and their families, for the Austens were greatly attached to one another, and took pleasure in meeting as often as possible, while all the nephews and nieces regarded a visit to "Aunt Jane" as a delightful privilege. Being the youngest of her family, some of her brothers' children were not far from her owm age, and she