DEAR SIR,--Severe illness has confined me to my bed ever since I received yours of y^{e} 15th. I cannot yet hold a pen, and employ an amanuensis. The politeness and perspicuity of your letter equally claim my earliest exertion. Your official opinion of the merits of _Emma_ is very valuable and satisfactory.[299] Though I venture to differ occasionally from your critique, yet I assure you the quantum of your commendation rather exceeds than falls short of the author's expectation and my own. The terms you offer are so very inferior to what we had expected that I am apprehensive of having made some great error in my arithmetical calculation. On the subject of the expence and profit of publishing you must be much better informed than I am, but documents in my possession appear to prove that the sum offered by you for the copyright of _Sense and Sensibility_, _Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_ is not equal to the money which my sister has actually cleared by one very moderate edition of _Mansfield Park_;--(you yourself expressed astonishment that so small an edition of such a work should have been sent into the world)--and a still smaller one of _Sense and Sensibility_.[300] Henry, however, became so alarmingly ill that on October 22 Jane dispatched expresses to her brothers and sister, summoning them to London. Mr. Knight left Godmersham for town on the 23rd, but owing to a delay in the delivery of the letter, James Austen did not receive his till the 24th. He rode to Chawton that evening, and the next day he and Cassandra arrived in London. For a time Henry's life was in imminent danger, but after a week's anxiety he was so far on the road to recovery that his two brothers were able to return home, leaving Jane and Cassandra in charge.