Page:A memoir of Jane Austen (Fourth Edition).pdf/311
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see how if can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities: she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience. Sir James may seem to have drawn a harder lot than mere folly merited; I leave him, therefore, to all the pity that anybody can give him. For myself, I confess that I can pity only Miss Mainwaring; who, coming to town, and putting herself to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a woman ten years older than herself.
FINIS.