r latest days, describe
going to see her within a very few months of her death; she was still
bright and responding as ever, though very ill. The young visitor had
herself been laid up and absent from the invalid's bedside for some
time. They talked over many things,--an authoress among the rest,
concerning whose power of writing a book Miss Mitford seems to have been
very doubtful. After her visitor was gone, the sick woman wrote one of
her delicate pretty little notes and despatched it with its tiny seal
(there it is still unbroken, with its M. R. M. just as she stamped it),
and this is the little letter:--

Thank you, dearest Miss... for once again showing me your fair face by
the side of the dear, dear friend [Lady Russell] for whose goodness
I have neither thanks nor words. To the end of my life I shall go on
sinning and repenting. Heartily sorry have I been ever since you went
away to have spoken so unkindly to Mrs.... Heaven forgive me for it,
and send her a happier conclusion to her life than the beginning might
warrant. If you have an idle lover, my dear, present over to him my
sermon, for those were words of worth.

God bless you all! Ever, most faithfully and affectionately yours,

M. R. MITFORD.

Sunday Evening.

VIII.

When one turns from Miss Mitford's works to the notices in the
biographical dictionary (in which Miss Mitford and Mithridates occupy
the same page), one finds how firmly her reputation is established.
'Dame auteur,' says my faithful mentor, the Biographic Generale,
'consideree comme le peintre le plus fidele de la vie rurale en
Angleterre.' 'Author of a remarkable tragedy, "Julian," in which
Macready played a principal part, followed by "Foscari," "Rienzi," and
others,' says the English Biographical Dictionary.

'I am charmed with my new cottage,' she writes soon after her last
installation; 'the neighbours are most kind.' Kingsley was one of
the first to call upon her. 'He took me quite by surprise in his
extraordinary fascination,' says the old lady.

Mr. Fields, the American publisher, also went to see Miss Mitford at
Swallowfield, and immediately became a very great ally of hers. It was
to him that she gave her own portrait, by Lucas. Mr. Fields has left an
interesting account of her in his 'Yesterdays with Authors'--'Her dogs
and her geraniums,' he says, 'were her great glories! She used to write
me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had
made som