Steventon, Thursday (November 20, 1800).

My dear Cassandra,—Your letter took me quite by surprise this morning; you are very welcome, however, and I am very much obliged to you. I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly¹ make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial² error.

Naughty Charles did not come on Tuesday, but good Charles came yesterday morning. About two o'clock he walked in on a Gosport hack³. His[71] feeling equal to such a fatigue⁴ is a good sign, and his feeling no fatigue in it a still better. He walked down to Deane to dinner; he danced the whole evening, and to-day is no more tired than a gentleman ought to be.

Your desiring to hear from me on Sunday will, perhaps, bring you a more particular account of the ball than you may care for, because one is prone⁵ to think much more of such things the morning after they happen, than when time has entirely⁶ driven them out of one's recollection.

It was a pleasant evening; Charles found it remarkably⁷ so, but I cannot tell why, unless the absence of Miss Terry, towards whom his conscience reproaches him with being now perfectly⁸ indifferent, was a relief to him. There were only twelve dances, of which I danced nine, and was merely prevented from dancing the rest by the want of a partner. We began at ten, supped at one, and were at Deane before five. There were but fifty people in the room; very few families indeed from our side of the county, and not many more from the other. My partners were the two St. Johns, Hooper, Holder⁹, and a very

分享到：