Mr. Austen-Leigh, writing from recollection, says: “My grandmother’s house had a pleasant garden bounded on one side by the old city walls; the top of this wall was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant walk, with an extensive view, easily accessible to ladies by steps.... At that time Castle Square was occupied by a fantastic edifice, too large for the space in which it stood, though too small to accord well with its castellated style, erected by the second Marquess of Lansdowne, half-brother to the well-known statesman who succeeded him in the title. The marchioness had a light phaeton drawn by six, and sometimes by eight little ponies, each pair decreasing in size and becoming lighter in colour.... It was a delight to me to look down from the window and see this fairy equipage put together, for the premises of the castle were so contracted that the whole process went on in the little space that remained of the open square.... On the death of the Marquess in 1809 the castle was pulled down. Few probably remember its existence; and anyone who might visit the place now would wonder how it ever could have stood there.” Mrs. Austen was not well off, for her husband had had no private means and she herself but little, yet her son Edward was well able to help her, for Chawton alone is said to have been worth £5000 a year. There was also money in the family, for Jane some years later speaks of her eldest brother’s income being £1100 a year. She and her sister must have had some little allowance also, as it was with her own money that she paid for the publication of the first of her books. Simply as she had always lived, she does not seem to have had small ideas on the subject, the couples in her books require about two thousand a year before they can be considered prosperous, and incomes of from five thousand to ten thousand pounds are not rare. She makes one of the characters in _Mansfield Park_ remark, on hearing that Mr. Crawford has four thousand pounds a year, “‘Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have. Four thousand a year is a pretty estate.’” There was apparently some question raised by her relations about the income bestowed by Jane upon the mother and daughters in _Sense and Sensibility_, namely, five hundred pounds a year. But having regard to all the circumstances, the style to which they were accustomed, and Mrs. Dashwood’s inability to economise, this could perhaps hardly have been made less. We hear at the close of one year at Southampton that Mrs. Austen is pleased “at the comfortable state of her own finances, which she finds on closing her year’s accounts, beyond her expectation, as she begins the new year with a balance of thirty pounds in her favour.” And afterwards, “My mother is afraid I have not been explicit enough on the subject of her wealth; she began 1806 with sixty-eight pounds; she begins 1807 with ninety-nine pounds, and this after thirty-two pounds purchase of stock.”