also from Letter 13, "No news from Kintbury yet. Eliza sports with our impatience." In Emma, everyone wants to know what is in Frank Churchill’s letter and Miss Bates wants to share Jane Fairfax's letter whether E wants to hear it or not.

I love to send and receive letters, unfortunately I know very few people who actually like to also, even email. Most prefer to talk on the telephone, which is great of course, but there is nothing like ink on paper, When I lived in Okinawa in the 1980s I lived to go to the postal service center and so did everyone else because overseas calls then were very expensive and you could count on spending eighty dollars for under 30 minutes. I still carry letters around in my purse and pull them out for a smile and chuckle anytime. When I pulled out my copy of E when I first started posting on RoP, about one month ago, I found a card my husband sent me for Valentines Day when he was in the Middle East back in the 1990s and I can assure you it was treasure to me. I was going to say you can't do that with a phone, but of course you can carry a phone around nowadays, but it is still not the same.