austion, telling everybody that
she is killing herself by her walks and drives. He would like her
never to go beyond the garden and beyond reach of the columns of his
newspaper. She declares that it is only by getting out and afield that
she can bear the strain and the constant alternation of enforced
work and anxiety. Nature was, indeed, a second nature to her. Charles
Kingsley himself could scarcely write better of the East wind....

'We have had nine weeks of drought and east wind, scarcely a flower to
be seen, no verdure in the meadows, no leaves in the hedgerows; if a
poor violet or primrose did make its appearance it was scentless. I have
not once heard my aversion the cuckoo... and in this place, so evidently
the rendezvous of swallows, that it takes its name from them, not
a swallow has yet appeared. The only time that I have heard the
nightingale, I drove, the one mild day we have had, to a wood where I
used to find the woodsorrel in beds; only two blossoms of that could be
found, but a whole chorus of nightingales saluted me the moment I drove
into the wood.'

There is something of Madame de Sevigne in her vivid realisation of
natural things.

She nursed her father through a long and trying illness, and when he
died found herself alone in the world with impaired health and very
little besides her pension from the Civil List to live upon. Dr. Mitford
left 1000 pounds worth of debts, which this honourable woman then and
there set to work to try and pay. So much courage and devotion touched
the hearts of her many friends and readers, and this sum was actually
subscribed by them. Queens, archbishops, dukes, and marquises subscribe
to the testimonial, so do the literary ladies, Mesdames Bailey,
Edgeworth, Trollope; Mrs. Opie is determined to collect twenty pounds at
least, although she justly says she wishes it were for anything but to
pay the Doctor's debts.

In 1844 it is delightful to read of a little ease at last in this
harassed life; of a school-feast with buns and flags organised by the
kind lady, the children riding in waggons decked with laurel, Miss
Mitford leading the way, followed by eight or ten neighbouring
carriages, and the whole party waiting in Swallowfield Lane to see
the Queen and Prince Albert returning from their visit to the Duke of
Wellington. 'Our Duke went to no great expense,' says Miss Mitford. (Dr.
Mitford would have certainly disapproved had he been still alive.) One
strip of carp