marrying without affection; and if his deficiencies of manner strike you more than all his good qualities, if you continue to think strongly of them, give him up at once.... “When I consider how few young men you have yet seen much of; how capable you are of being really in love; and how full of temptation the next six or seven years of your life will probably be, I cannot wish you, with your present very cool feelings, to devote yourself in honour to him. It is very true that you never may attach another man his equal altogether; but if that other man has the power of attaching you _more_, he will be in your eyes the most perfect. “You are inimitable, irresistible. You are the delight of my life. Such letters, such entertaining letters as you have lately sent! such a description of your queer little heart! such a lovely display of what imagination does!... You are so odd, and all the time so perfectly natural, so peculiar in yourself, and yet so like everybody else. It is very, very gratifying to me to know you so intimately.... Oh what a loss it will be when you are married! You are too agreeable in your single state. I shall hate you when your delicious play of mind is all settled down into conjugal and maternal affections.... “And yet I do wish you to marry very much because I know you will never be happy till you are,” and later on, apropos of someone else, she adds: “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony, but I need not dwell on such arguments with you, pretty dear. To you I shall say, as I have often said before, Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last; you will in the course of the next two or three years meet with somebody more generally unexceptionable than anyone you have yet known, who will love you as warmly as possible, and who will so completely attract you that you will feel you never really loved before.” But it was not until 1820 that Fanny married, as his second wife, the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Knatchbull, 9th Bt., who had already five sons and one daughter, the eldest boy being twelve years old. Six years after the marriage, the daughter married Fanny’s brother Edward. She herself lived to nearly ninety, and was the mother of five sons and four daughters, and in 1880 her eldest son was created Baron Brabourne; and he, as has been already stated, was the editor of the volumes of _Letters_. But Jane’s sympathetic advice was called for by more than one niece passing through the difficult time between girlhood and womanhood; Anna, her eldest brother James’s daughter, was a frequent visitor at Chawton, and though she does not seem ever to have taken quite the same position in her aunt’s affections as Fanny did, she was yet a lively, amusing, pleasant girl.