It will be remembered that Mr. Elton’s charade, of which the meaning was “Courtship,” further misled the match-making Emma into thinking he was in love with Harriet the dowerless, while she herself, the heiress, was the real object of his attentions. Several charades of this type made up by the Austens are still extant; the two following are Jane’s own. “Divided I’m a gentleman In public deeds and powers; United, I’m a monster, who That gentleman devours.” To which the answer is _A-gent_. “You may lie on my first by the side of a stream, And my second compose to the nymph you adore; But if, when you’ve none of my whole, her esteem And affection diminish—think of her no more.” Which is easily read as _Bank-note_. Both of these specimens show the gaiety of spirit so noticeable in the smallest extracts from her letters. Her observations on her nephews put the two boys before us to the life. “While I write now George is most industriously making and manning paper ships, at which he afterwards shoots horse chestnuts, brought from Steventon on purpose; and Edward equally intent over the Lake of Killarney and twisting himself about in one of our great chairs.” Her wonderful powers as an entertainer are clearly shown in this sad time, when she strove to keep her nephews occupied to the exclusion of sad thoughts; she took them for excursions on the Itchen, when they rowed her in a boat, and she was never weary of entering into their sports and feelings; her real unselfishness came out very strongly on this occasion. Sir Arthur Wellesley had sailed for Spain in the July of this year, and now England was in the throes of the Peninsular War; some of the very few allusions that Jane ever makes to contemporary events are to be found in reference to the Peninsular War, and these are more personal than general. On hearing of Sir John Moore’s death in January 1809, she writes: “I am sorry to find that Sir J. Moore has a mother living, but though a very heroic son, he might not be a very necessary one to her happiness.... I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the hero in his death. Thank heaven we have had no one to care for particularly among the troops, no one in fact nearer to us than Sir John himself.” CHAPTER XV CHAWTON In 1809 another move was contemplated. Edward Knight had found it in his power to offer his mother and sisters a home rent free; and he gave them the choice of a house in Kent, probably not far from Godmersham, or a cottage at Chawton close to his Manor House there.