ess queens. The modern house was built by
Clarendon, and the old church among the elms dates from 1200, with
carved signs and symbols and brasses of knights and burgesses, and names
of strange sound and bygone fashion.

Lady Russell, who had sent the phaeton with the fast-stepping horse to
meet us, was walking in the park as we drove up, and instead of taking
us back to the house, she first led the way across the grass and by the
stream to the old church, standing in its trim sweet garden, where Death
itself seems smiling and fearless; where kind Mary Mitford's warm heart
rests quiet, and 'her busy hand,' as she says herself, 'is lying in
peace there, where the sun glances through the great elm trees in the
beautiful churchyard of Swallowfield.'

The last baronet, Sir Charles, who fought in the Crimea, and who
succeeded his father, Sir Henry, moved the dividing rail so that his old
friend should be well within the shadow of these elm trees. Lady Russell
showed us the tranquil green place, and told us its story, and how the
old church had once been doomed to destruction when Kingsley came over
by chance, and pleaded that it should be spared; and how, when rubbish
and outward signs of decay had been cleared away, the restorers were
rewarded for their piety, by coming upon noble beams of oak,
untouched by time, upon some fine old buried monuments and brasses and
inscriptions, among which the people still say their prayers in the
shrine where their fathers knelt, and of which the tradition is not yet
swept away. The present Lady of the Manor, who loves old traditions, has
done her part to preserve the records for her children.

So Miss Mitford walked from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield to end her
days, with these kind friends to cheer and to comfort her. Sir Henry
Russell was alive when she first established herself, but he was
already suffering from some sudden seizure, which she, with her usual
impetuosity, describes in her letters as a chronic state of things.
After his death, his widow, the Lady Russell of those days, was her
kindest friend and comforter.

The little Swallowfield cottage at the meeting of the three roads, to
which Mary Mitford came when she left Three Mile Cross, has thrown out
a room or two, as cottages do, but otherwise I think it can be little
changed. It was here Miss Mitford was visited by so many interesting
people, here she used to sit writing at her big table under the 'tassels
of her acac