Friday.– At length the Day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, & when you receive this it will be over—-My tears flow as I write, at the melancholy idea. Wm. Chute called here yesterday. I wonder what he means by being so civil. There is a report that Tom is going to be married to a Litchfield Lass. John Lyford & his Sister bring Edward home to day, dine with us, & we shall all go together to Ashe. I understand that we are to draw for Partners.–I shall be extremely impatient to hear from you again, that I may know how Eliza is, & when you are to return. With best Love, &c., I am affec:tely yours J: Austen
Miss Austen
The Rev. Mr Fowle’s
Kintbury,
Newbury
QuinnTessence 
That hurts my heart for dear Jane. It seems that the two of them held a true affection for one another, it only the strictness of the times re relationships had been different…
Yeah, her letters always make me wonder (given her general habits of writing overall in both letters and her fiction) how much of those comments is light-hearted irony and how much is truly felt emotion or where it falls on a sliding scale between those two. One of those things that make me more insatiably curious because there’s no way to research a definitive answer!
I can’t help but wonder too, at ‘poor’ Mr Chute – whatever he did to deserve that barb… 😉
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