ABSTRACT
Lovers of Jane Austen know that the ends of her novels were hurried, almost hasty, as if, once she had tied everything up in a neat package, she could not bear to go on. I know that feeling. I do not want to weary myself or my reader with repetition, and I have tried to draw conclusions throughout this work, and to invite readers to do so, rather than saving them all for the end. I shall close, then, with something more in the nature of a brief epilogue than a reprise. I did not choose an epigraph for this last chapter for much the same reason: I hope that readers will observe the world around us at this moment and find their own resonating comments.
