he morning with a dreary sense of pain and pressure, of
something which weighed me to the earth.'

Mary Russell Mitford was born on the 16th of December 1787. She was the
only child of her parents, who were well connected; her mother was an
heiress. Her father belonged to the Mitfords of the North. She describes
herself as 'a puny child, with an affluence of curls which made her look
as if she were twin sister to her own great doll.' She could read at
three years old; she learnt the Percy ballads by heart almost before she
could read. Long after, she used to describe how she first studied her
beloved ballads in the breakfast-room lined with books, warmly spread
with its Turkey carpet, with its bright fire, easy chairs, and the
windows opening to a garden full of flowers,--stocks, honeysuckles, and
pinks. It is touching to note how, all through her difficult life,
her path was (literally) lined with flowers, and how the love of them
comforted and cheered her from the first to the very last. In her
saddest hours, the passing fragrance and beauty of her favourite
geraniums cheered and revived her. Even when her mother died she found
comfort in the plants they had tended together, and at the very last
breaks into delighted descriptions of them.

She was sent to school in the year 1798 to No. 22 Hans Place, to a Mrs.
St. Quintin's. It seems to have been an excellent establishment. Mary
learnt the harp and astronomy; her taste for literature was encouraged.
The young ladies, attired as shepherdesses, were also taught to skip
through many mazy movements, but she never distinguished herself as a
shepherdess. She had greater success in her literary efforts, and her
composition 'on balloons' was much applauded. She returned to her home
in 1802. 'Plain in figure and in face, she was never common-looking,'
says Mr. Harness. He gives a pretty description of her as 'no ordinary
child, her sweet smiles, her animated conversation, her keen enjoyment
of life, and her gentle voice won the love and admiration of her
friends, whether young or old.' Mr. Harness has chiefly told Miss
Mitford's story in her own words by quotations from her letters, and, as
one reads, one can almost follow her moods as they succeed each other,
and these moods are her real history. The assiduity of childhood, the
bright enthusiasm and gaiety of her early days, the growing anxiety of
her later life, the maturer judgments, the occasional despairing
terrors which