She had evidently determined to follow in her aunt’s footsteps, as was most natural, and had attempted to write a novel herself; Jane’s treatment of her tentative efforts was very kind, some of the letters to the would-be authoress are preserved, and nothing could be gentler. “I am very much obliged to you for sending me your MS. It has entertained me extremely; indeed all of us. I read it aloud to your grandmamma and aunt Cass, and we were all very pleased. The spirit does not drop at all. Now we have finished the second book or rather the fifth: Susan is a nice animated little creature, but St. Julian is the delight of our lives. He is quite interesting. The whole of his break off with Lady Helena is very well done.” She then goes in great detail into all the characters, making various suggestions: “You are but now coming to the heart and beauty of your story. Until the heroine grows up the fun must be imperfect, but I expect a great deal of entertainment from the next three or four books, and I hope you will not resent these remarks by sending me no more.” Then she gives one or two characteristic touches. “Devereux Forester’s being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but I wish you would not let him plunge into a ‘vortex of dissipation.’ I do not object to the thing but cannot bear the expression; it is such thorough novel slang, and so old that I daresay Adam met with it in the first novel he opened.” In 1814, Anna was engaged to Benjamin Lefroy, whom she married in November. After her marriage she first lived at Hendon, but in the following year she and her husband took a small house near Alton, so that she was within a walk of Chawton. She still went on with her novel-writing. And Jane continued to criticise her progress— “We have no great right to wonder at his [Benjamin Lefroy’s] not valuing the name of Progillian. That is a source of delight which even _he_ can hardly be quite competent to.” “St. Julian’s history was quite a surprise to me. You had not very long known it yourself I suspect. His having been in love with the aunt gives Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea, a very proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine indeed that nieces are seldom chosen but out of compliment to some aunt or other. I daresay Ben was in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he had not supposed me dead of scarlet fever.” Anna became the mother of six daughters and one son, and lived until 1872. CHAPTER XVIII THE PRINCE REGENT AND _EMMA_