little miss austin

Mom is eager to return home and is already packing the suitcase.

Alice thought for a while, and wrote another letter to Wesley, thanking him for keeping their mother and daughter here for such a long time. It was really bothering him, and he ate a lot of chickens. The cook moulted the chickens every day, and they might all have "phobia" disease".

Wesley couldn't help laughing while reading the letter in the dormitory.The student who lived with him desperately poked his head over, "Whose letter? Is it so funny?"

Wesley folded the letter and carefully put it in his coat pocket.

The classmate is the youngest son of a certain lord. He went to Cambridge University before, but was expelled because he missed too many classes, so he also became an older student at Oxford University. He is 1 year younger than Wesley. He is a playboy and can play with everything.

"Don't be so stingy," the classmate muttered, "Say, is this a letter from a lovely lady?"

Wesley thought to himself: She is very cute, and she is also a lady.

"I have to go out to dinner," he stood up. "Would you like to come, William?"

William jumped up from the sofa, "Let's go! I found a nice restaurant a few days ago. The taste of the dishes is not what I value, but that restaurant has a lovely daughter—"

"Hey!" The good boy Wesley couldn't help interrupting him, "Don't tell me these things."

William was not ashamed, and said with a smile: "You tell me who wrote you the letter, and I won't mention it."

Wesley decided to pretend not to hear.

Alice soon returned to Steventon.

The carriage in Hyde Park took them directly to the intersection in front of the vicarage. Alice got out of the car and was very happy when she saw the familiar small building, "George!"

Brother George was playing with the family watchdog on the lawn in front of the house.He couldn't hear the sound, so the servant next to him patted him and pointed to him.Seeing his little sister jumping out of the carriage, he laughed happily, ran over, and began to "talk".

——I heard you were ill. Are you well now?

"It's all good." Alice signed in sign language. "How are you? We're not at home these days, no one will play with you anymore."

- I play by myself.

Then he saw mother get out of the carriage and let the coachman and footman unload their trunks.The valet entered the house with the suitcase, and the mother hurriedly greeted George and entered the house.

George snapped his mouth like a child.

——What's wrong with mom?Are you mad at me?

"No, she is too tired. I have been sick for a long time, and my mother has been taking care of me. I brought you toys, and I will bring them to you when I pack up my luggage."

George cheered up again and nodded.

Alice entered the room and saw Pastor George. Pastor George looked at her carefully and was very satisfied. "It's okay, she's not thin, and she's turned white. Mom, has she grown taller again?" He felt her The skirt seems to be shorter again.

She turned white because she stayed in the room all the time, couldn't go out and run around, and couldn't get the sun.My mother asked the servants to take her to the yard every morning to bask in the sun for an hour, which is good for a quick recovery, but she was not allowed to stay in the sun for too long, so she spent the summer running around in the fields to get tanned again. His skin turned white a little bit.

Mom said: "It seems to be a little taller. Alice, come here." Called her over, pulled her by the door of the housekeeping room, and measured her height—it was taller than when I came back at the end of March A little bit, about 3 inch, which is normal.

My mother thought about it in her heart, "I won't make her a new dress now, summer will be over soon, and I will make a new dress in winter." The child is a waste of fabric, so he has to make several sets of new clothes a year. "Put on Jane's old dress first."

Alice sighed in her heart: she had to pick up her sisters' old skirts again.But she's used to it, so she doesn't mind.

The maid at home has put her suitcase in her room, she went upstairs, packed all the things in the suitcase, hung up the skirt, put the brought back gifts aside, and put the received letters in the letter storage in the box.

It can be said that she didn't do a lot of things when she went to London this time, and her illness disrupted her original plan.When she was ill, she wrote to Tom Lefroy, asking him where he could buy typewriters in London.

Tom wrote back the same day, saying that he had never heard of it at all. What is a typewriter?

Alice was very surprised: She knew that typewriters were not popular in this era, but Tom, a fashionable young man, didn't know what a typewriter was?

She wrote another letter, describing in detail the shape and purpose of the typewriter.

Tom wrote back one day later, saying that he went to inquire about it, and wrote to her a few days later, saying that someone had heard of a typewriter and should have applied for a patent at the Patent Office. He would go to the Patent Office to check the documents when he had time, and asked her to be patient. wait.

Alice thought: What I have is patience.In this era, everything is done slowly, and it is impossible to be impatient.

This matter will be put on hold for now.

There is no new letter from Henry.

Alice started her busy life again: she gets up at 7:9 every morning, after washing, she eats a small bread mat to pad her stomach, and then goes to the yard to feed the chickens with Brother George. She can’t do other heavy work; , just go out for a walk in the fields with brother George, come home at [-] o'clock for a formal breakfast, breakfast has toast, jam - usually homemade marmalade and applesauce - and hot cocoa, mom and George pastor drink Coffee, Brother George has hot tea.

For the rest of the morning, her mother taught her to play the piano.There is an upright piano at home. Cathy only learned to play the piano for less than a week. Jane is willing to learn to play the piano, and she is willing to spend time practicing. It is mainly taught by her mother and learned from a certain lady in Southampton. There has never been a better musical education.

Lunch is more casual, sometimes some cold meat and fruit, Alice does not like to eat cold meat, usually eat some fruit at noon, afterward Alice will take a nap, and when she wakes up, her mother will teach her to be a girl, starting with a simple hair band It is a skill that a lady must learn, and she can't escape it even if she wants to.

If she went to Gresham Manor, she would mainly practice the piano and draw pictures. Mrs. Gresham could also play the piano, and gave her some music scores and asked her to practice more.She is much stricter than what her mother taught, and she will play a note again if she misses it.But no one has started teaching her to sing yet.

Mrs. Gresham also taught her the etiquette of a lady in high society, such as how to dress when going out to a banquet, how to talk to nobles with different titles, how to socialize with peers, table manners, the way a lady walks, and how to make good use of a fan.

Gentlemen in this era have to learn to wear decorative sabers from an early age—and some are not just decorative sabers. You must know that there are still many private duels, and there are also many impromptu duels. It is also one of the favorite places for private duels among nobles.

Ladies learned to hold lace fans from an early age. Ladies’ fans have many uses. They are the first to show that they are ladies of status. The decorations of the fans are also various. According to the materials and grades of the decorations, the price ranges from a few shillings to several The price ranges from ten pounds, and expensive fans can even be left as family heirlooms to future generations.

Mrs. Gresham proudly showed Alice her hundreds of fans. The materials range from silk and silk from the Far East to handmade lace from England. The decorations are various precious and semi-precious stones.He also told her resentfully that these will be left to Wesley's wife in the future, and Jane had a chance to get them.

Alice skipped the subject without answering.Jane is not someone who cares about these things, and material enjoyment is not her primary consideration.

You have to learn to "play".

The men mainly played cards, an important pastime.Women play a little more, a little more interesting.

Dancing is of course the most important item, so that it must be taken out separately and not included in the "pastime game". Dancing is a kind of social etiquette, and prom is a formal social occasion.

Some games suitable for family members, there is a kind of game is a wooden stick with a circular groove in the front, tied with a rope, the other end of the rope is a round wooden ball, players need to quickly He threw the wooden ball up gently and accurately caught it with the end of the groove.Jane is especially good at playing this "cup ball game", and can throw and catch more than 100 times continuously until her wrist is so sore that she can't hold the wooden stick.

Also play backgammon - both genders, or anagrams, and crosswords, which are great games to play in the quiet of the house.

Many men's games needed to be played outdoors, such as cricket, England's national sport, and the pastime of the aristocrats and wealthy classes: hunting.

Hunting is an expensive business.

Mrs. Gresham has the common problem of old women and likes to "remember the past".Speaking of Mr. Gresham's fondness for hunting, his family once had a group of fox terriers and many high-quality rifles, but Wesley didn't like hunting, so the rifles could only stay lonely in the gun cabinet , do maintenance on a regular basis; no more hounds, but a few ferocious watchdogs.

Alice had learned whist from the Reverend George, and they were both willing to take her to play if Mr. Lefroy came to visit.

Mrs. Lefroy was a distant relation of Mrs. Austen, née Bridges.Mrs. Austen's great-grandmother was also named Bridges, so they were cousins ​​separated by several generations. Alice didn't know if there was a difference in their generations, but they were cousins ​​anyway.The Lefroy family moved to neighboring Ash Parish 12 years ago, when Jane was eight, Lucy four and Alice not yet born.

The busy and fulfilling days passed quickly, and soon it was winter, November.

During the period, Tom wrote her two letters, one of which was mainly about the typewriter, saying that the patent had been applied for decades, and the inventor had passed away, but because he had not entered into commercial production, he never entered into it. In the marketing and sales process, moreover, he only found exterior drawings and relatively simple internal design drawings, but did not find actual samples.

The other letter said that he inquired about being a publisher. Most of this professional industry is passed down from family, and it is difficult for new entrants to enter.

Alice wrote back and said that she thought the key point was the distributor, and asked if the publisher had a fixed and exclusive distributor, or if the distributor did business for everyone, and asked him to find out the key point.

Henry also wrote to her, saying that he went to the printing factory to look at it. According to her request, he focused on the power issue of the printing press. She guessed it right, it was still manual, and steam engine power was not used, and I hadn’t heard of it. Who invented the printing press driven by the steam engine.He also asked how she knew to ask these questions. Steam engines and so on should not be questions that a child under 7 years old can understand.

Alice racked her brains to push the source of the problem onto Mr. Hastings.It is unlikely that Henry would actually write to Mr. Hastings, would he?

Cathy and Jane are still at cousin Cooper's house, saying that they will go home together when Henry is on Christmas leave.

Cousin Cooper, named Edward, was the child of Mrs. Austen's older sister, as close as her aunt's daughter, Cousin Eliza.Cousin Edward had an older sister named Jane, Jane Cooper. The two girls with the same name were very close, but Jane Cooper was trampled to death in a carriage accident within a few years of her marriage. After the news, the Austins were very sad.

The author has something to say:

*The commercialization and popularization of typewriters probably came late in the late 19th century and early 20th century.You can refer to the old typewriter Kazumi used in "Atonement".

*In addition, I suddenly discovered that it seems that it takes less than a day to travel from Hampshire to London by carriage, at least one and a half days, but in this way, I have to write where to spend the night, which is too long-winded, so I decided to omit it, assuming that it only takes one day.

*In the Regency era, breakfast was eaten late, usually at 9 or 10 o'clock, and dinner was usually eaten in the afternoon, and the later the dinner, the higher the social status, and sometimes it was even late when modern people had dinner.If there is a dance in the evening, there will be dinner, but the food is very simple, which is equivalent to the current supper.When breakfast and dinner are considered important meals, lunch and dinner are more casual, and afternoon tea is not eaten in the afternoon, but in the evening.