] Did she find him a sad figure then? I wonder if the boy was depressive, or sensitive beyond the usual. Would she, as a little girl, have been frightened of him, or would she have found him on a par with her, being so much younger than him?

Tomalin in her book says that Jane Austen wrote that she danced with or talked to the Earl of Portsmouth (John Charles Wallop) at a ball once, they were not children by then, but perhaps this indicates that she ddi not find him repulsive or frightening. (Sorry I can't copy the paragraph in the book because I am at work and don't have the book with me).