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LOL_ here it is
Written by JulieW
(9/2/2005 1:06 p.m.)
in consequence of the missive, Dressing-room: ref. in "Family Record"? - letter 13, penned by Maisy
IN teh second editon the page refernce is to p 73, for any of you with a copy of the new book.:-) For those without here it is: "The decrease in teh size od the household( when George Austen stopped taking in pupils-JW) meant that there was more elbow room available in the rectory for the permanant inhabitants, and, one of the Bed chambers , that over the Dining room was plainly fitted up & converted into a sort of Drawing room; but this transformation did not occur till my Grand Father and Grand Mother had reared a good family og children..not probably till my two Aunts ,Cassandra and Jane ...were living at home as grown up young ladies.This room, the Dressing room, as they were pleased to call it, communicated with one of smaller size where my two Aunts slept; I remember the common- looking carpet with its chocolate ground that covered the floor , and the some portinos of the furniture. A painted press, with shelves above for books,that stood with its back to the wall next to the Bedroom & opposite the fireplace; my Aunt Jane's Pianoforte- 7 above all, on a table between the windows,above which hung a looking-glass, 2 Tonbridge-ware work boxes of oval shape, fitted up with ivory barrel containing reels for silk, yard measures ,etc. I thought them beautiful, and so perhaps in their day and in their degree they were.But the charmof the room, with its scanty furniture and cheaply papered walls , must have been, for those odl enough to understand it, the flow of native homebred wit, with all the fun& nonsense of a clever family who ahd but little intercourse with the outer world These words were written by Ann Lefroy nee Austen,and I think capture some of the attraction of the family for her. |

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