ia tree.' When the present Lady of the Manor brought us to
the gate, the acacia flowers were over, but a balmy breath of summer
was everywhere; a beautiful rose was hanging upon the wall beneath the
window (it must have taken many years to grow to such a height), and
beyond the palings of the garden spread the fields, ripening in the
late July, and turning to gold. The farmer and his son were at work with
their scythes; the birds were still flying, the sweet scents were in the
air.

From a lady who had known her, 'my own Miss Anne' of the letters, we
heard something more that day of the author of 'Our Village'; of her
charming intellect, her gift of talk, her impulsiveness, her essential
sociability, and rapid grace of mind. She had the faults of her
qualities; she jumped too easily to conclusions; she was too much
under the influence of those with whom she lived. She was born to be a
victim,--even after her old tyrant father's death, she was more or less
over-ridden by her servants. Neighbours looked somewhat doubtfully on
K. and Ben, but they were good to her, on the whole, and tended her
carefully. Miss Russell said that when she and her brother took refuge
in the cottage, one morning from a storm, while they dried themselves
by the fire, they saw the careful meal carried up to the old lady, the
kidneys, the custard, for her dejeuner a la fourchette.

When Miss Mitford died, she left everything she had to her beloved
K. and to Ben, except that she said she wished that one book from her
well-stocked library should be given to each of her friends. The old
Doctor, with all his faults, had loved books, and bought handsome and
valuable first editions of good authors. K. and Ben also seem to have
loved books and first editions. To the Russells, who had nursed Miss
Mitford, comforted her, by whose gates she dwelt, in whose arms she
died, Ben brought, as a token of remembrance, an old shilling volume
of one of G. P. R. James's novels, which was all he could bear to part
with. A prettier incident was told me by Miss Russell, who once went to
visit Miss Mitford's grave. She found a young man standing there whom
she did not know. 'Don't you know me?' said he; 'I am Henry, ma'am. I
have just come back from Australia.' He was one of the children of the
couple who had lived in the cottage, and his first visit on his return
from abroad had been to the tomb of his old protectress.

I also heard a friend who knew Miss Mitford in he