] 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).

As you wrote Caroline Jane did not live but Claire Tomalin writes she did mention in one of her letters of his marriage to his second wife, the one who later abused him. Sorry to quote Tomalin so much but I am reading it now.