was merely good-looking and sensible; but she had a dis-
tinguished air and a decisive, epigrammatic turn of speech.
It was thought that she had perhaps inherited this from her
uncle, Dr. Theophilus Leigh, the Master of Balliol, whose
bon-mots were famous. When an acquaintance was described
as having been "egged on" to matrimony, Dr. Leigh had
observed: "Let us hope the yoke will sit lightly on him."

Mrs. Austen's early married life, however she might bring
to it a shrewd and intellectual mind, was domestic to the
exclusion of every other interest; she bore four sons in little
more than four years, and when she was not tied to her own
house, on one occasion at least she went to London to nurse
a sister-in-law in her confinement. The lady whom she
nursed in town was Mrs. Walter, the wife of George Austen's
half-brother; to Mr. and Mrs. Walter some very amusing
letters were written by their country relatives at Steventon,
and in later years, a few containing little pieces of informa-
tion about the younger daughter of the Rectory. Mrs. Austen
much preferred her own country existence, and said of her
stay in London: "'Tis a sad place. I would not live in it
on any account, one has not time to do one's duty either to
God or man." Of Mrs. Austen's first four children, the
third, George, was subject to fits and was never able to live
with the family, and the temperament of the Austens is
nowhere better shown than by the fact that, affectionate
and forthright as they were, beyond the statement of his
death in 1827, not a single word in reference to him is
discoverable in any of their printed memoirs and corre-
spondence.

The three other little boys, James, Edward and Henry,
were splendidly healthy and high-spirited; then a daughter
was born, called Cassandra after her mother. Like her broth-
ers, she was put out to nurse for the first months, and when

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