Chapter One

Bath being unbearably hot this August, and my father's health indifferent, we determined to exchange our rooms in town for more salubrious ones along the coast. We had little inclination to try the bustle and vulgarity of Ramsgate, though my brother Edward would take a large establishment there; Brighton was not even to be spoken of; and so to Dorsetshire we would go, and to Lyme Regis in particular, having made a several-weeks' trial of its delights the previous autumn. No coaching inn should be good enough accommodation on the present occasion, however; none of your Three Cups or Golden Lions would do for us-no, the Austens of Bath should travel in style, and take furnished lodgings. A cottage on the water, where my mother might gaze at the sea, and consider her Naval sons, and my father might indulge his passion for botany in walks along the shingle, should do very well. Cassandra and I meant to be happy with frequent turns about the Cobb, and even more frequent dances in the town's pretty little Assembly Rooms; our memories of the place were so cheerful, in fact, that the plan met with immediate approval. Bath was forgotten; Ramsgate consigned to those of little sense or taste; and Lyme become the object of all our fondest hopes.

Being possessed of a fortune that no longer admits of a private carriage, but finding ourselves above the meaner conveyance of mail coach and stage-the former being adjudged too swift and precarious for my father's temper, and the latter too crowded and vulgar for my mother's-we were forced to adopt the only alternative, a post chaise initiating in Bath, with horses changed daily en route. Having descend

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