nd drinking tea: we too were served with smoking cups,
and poured our libation to her who once presided in the quiet place; and
then the landlady took us round and about, showed us the kitchen with
its comfortable corners and low window-frames--'I suppose this is
scarcely changed at all?' said one of us.

'Oh yes, ma'am,' says the housekeeper--'WE uses a Kitchener, Miss
Mitford always kept an open range.'

The garden, with its sentry-box of privet, exists no longer; an iron
mission-room stands in its place, with the harmonium, the rows of straw
chairs, the table and the candlesticks de circonstance. Miss Mitford's
picture hangs on the wall, a hand-coloured copy of one of her portraits.
The kindly homely features smile from the oils, in good humour and
attentive intelligence. The sentiment of to-day is assuredly to be found
in the spirit of things rather than in their outward signs.... Any one
of us can feel the romance of a wayside shrine put up to the memory of
some mediaeval well-dressed saint with a nimbus at the back of her
head, and a trailing cloak and veil.... Here, after all, is the same
sentiment, only translated into nineteenth-century language; uses
corrogated iron sheds, and cups of tea, and oakum matting. 'Mr. Palmer,
he bought the place,' says the landlady, 'he made it into a Temperance
Hotel, and built the Temperance Hall in the garden.'....

No romantic marble shrine, but a square meeting-house of good intent,
a tribute not less sincere because it is square, than if it were drawn
into Gothic arch and curve. It speaks, not of a holy and mythical saint,
but of a good and warm-hearted woman; of a life-long penance borne with
charity and cheerfulness; of sweet fancies and blessings which have
given innocent pleasure to many generations!

VII.

There is a note, written in a close and pretty writing, something
between Sir Walter Scott's and Mrs. Browning's, which the present
writer has possessed for years, fastened in a book among other early
treasures:--

Thank you, dearest Miss Priscilla, for your great kindness. I return the
ninth volume of [illegible], with the four succeeding ones, all that I
have; probably all that are yet published. You shall have the rest when
I get them. Tell dear Mr. George (I must not call him Vert-Vert) that I
have recollected the name of the author of the clever novel 'Le Rouge et
le Noir' (that is the right title of the book, which has nothing to do
with the name); the a