We must mention one other intimate friendship--that which existed between the Austens and the Lefroys of Ashe. Mr. Lefroy was Rector of that parish; and his wife, known within it as 'Madam Lefroy,' was sister to Sir Egerton Brydges to whom we are indebted for the very early notice of Jane Austen as a girl which we have already given. 'Mrs. Lefroy was a remarkable person. Her rare endowments of goodness, talents, graceful person, and engaging manners were sufficient to secure her a prominent place in any society into which she was thrown; while her enthusiastic eagerness of disposition rendered her especially attractive to a clever and lively girl.'[55] How intensely Jane loved and admired her is shown by some lines which she wrote on December 16, 1808--the anniversary both of her own birth and of the sudden death of her friend, killed by a fall from her horse in 1804. It has sometimes been assumed that the self-restraint in expressions of affection to be found throughout Jane's published writings, and the self-control they display in matters of emotion, arises from the fact that in the writer's nature there were no very ardent affections to be restrained, and no overpowering emotions to be suppressed. These lines show the baselessness of such an assumption. It was not for the gaze of the public, but to relieve her own heart, that Jane, at the age of thirty-three, wrote thus, four years after the death of this elder friend. Here she dared to speak as she felt, striving in all the warmth and depth of enduring attachment and admiration to paint a character which she yet declares to have been 'past her power to praise.' The verses continue thus:-- But come, fond fancy, thou indulgent power; Hope is desponding, chill, severe, to thee: Bless thou this little portion of an hour; Let me behold her as she used to be. I see her here with all her smiles benign, Her looks of eager love, her accents sweet, That voice and countenance almost divine, Expression, harmony, alike complete. Listen! It is not sound alone, 'tis sense, 'Tis genius, taste, and tenderness of soul; 'Tis genuine warmth of heart without pretence, And purity of mind that crowns the whole. * * * * * Can aught enhance such goodness? Yes, to me Her partial favour from my earliest years Consummates all: ah! give me but to see Her smile of love! The vision disappears.