Lady Susan by Jane Austen Letter 14 Page 1

MR. DE COURCY TO SIR REGINALD

Churchhill

My dear Sir,

I have this moment received your letter, which has given me more astonishment than I ever felt before.

I am to thank my sister, I suppose, for having represented me in such a light as to injure me in your opinion, and give you all this alarm. I know not why she should choose to make herself and her family uneasy by apprehending an event which no one but herself, I can affirm, would ever have thought possible. To impute such a design to Lady Susan would be taking from her every claim to that excellent understanding which her bitterest enemies have never denied her; and equally low must sink my pretensions to common sense if I am suspected of matrimonial views in my