moment,
more varied and more beautiful, as the dazzling golden lines are mixed
with glowing red and gorgeous purple, dappled with small dark specks,
and mingled with such a blue as the egg of the hedge-sparrow.... To
look up at that glorious sky, and then to see that magnificent picture
reflected in the clear and lovely Loddon water, is a pleasure never to
be described, and never to be forgotten. My heart swells, and my eyes
fill as I write of it, and think of the immeasurable majesty of nature
and the unspeakable goodness of God, who has spread an enjoyment so
pure, so peaceful, and so intense before the meanest and lowliest of His
creatures.'

But it is needless now to go on praising 'Our Village,' or to recount
what a success was in store for the little book. Certain books hold
their own by individual right and might; they are part of everybody's
life as a matter of course. They are not always read, but they tacitly
take their place among us. The editions succeeded editions here and in
America; artists came down to illustrate the scenes. Miss Mitford, who
was so delighted with the drawings by Mr. Baxter, should have lived to
see the charming glimpses of rural life we owe to Mr. Thomson. 'I don't
mind 'em,' says Lizzy to the cows, as they stand with spirited bovine
grace behind the stable door. 'Don't mind them indeed!'

I think the author would assuredly have enjoyed the picture of the
baker, the wheelwright and the shoemaker, each following his special
Alderney along the road to the village, or of the farmer driving his old
wife in the gig.... One design, that of the lady in her pattens, comes
home to the writer of these notes, who has perhaps the distinction of
being the only authoress now alive who has ever walked out in
pattens. At the age of seven years she was provided with a pair by a
great-great-aunt, a kind old lady living at Fareham, in Hampshire,
where they were still in use. How interesting the little circles looked
stamped upon the muddy road, and how nearly down upon one's nose one was
at every other step!

But even with all her success, Miss Mitford was not out of her troubles.
She writes to Mr. Harness saying: 'You cannot imagine how perplexed I
am. There are points in my domestic situation too long and too painful
to write about; the terrible improvidence of one dear parent, the
failure of memory and decay of faculty in that other who is still
dearer, cast on me a weight of care and fear that I ca