her impulsiveness and childlike love of fun and delight in
everything on earth. We see in such a passage what her merit really
is, the reason of our liking or "partiality" for her. Her pleasure in
everything makes everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling
without art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a
literary expression to personal charm--that quality which is almost
untranslatable into written words. Many women possess it; it is in them
and issues from them, and is like an essential oil in a flower, but too
volatile to be captured and made use of. Furthermore, women when they
write are as a rule even more conventional than men, more artificial and
out of and away from themselves.

I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I have
gone aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own satisfaction.
Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an hour pleasantly with
a book I have found myself picking up "Our Village" from among many
others, some waiting for a first perusal, and I wanted to know why this
was so--to find out, if not to invent, some reason for my liking which
would not make me ashamed.

At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there was no
such place; and of the inns, named, I think, the "Crown," "Cricketers,"
"Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and Dragon," only one, was said to
provide accommodation for travellers as the law orders, but on going to
the house we were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead,
or dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one in.
Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross and the old
ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a wretched place,
smelling of mould and dry-rot; however, it was not so bad after a fire
had been lighted in the grate, but first the young girl who waited on us
brought in a bundle of newspapers, which she proceeded to thrust up the
chimney-flue and kindle, "to warm the flue and make the fire burn," she
explained.

On the following day, the weather being milder, we rambled on through
woods and lanes, visiting several villages, and arrived in the afternoon
at Silchester, where we had resolved to put up for the night. By a happy
chance we found a pleasant cottage on the common to stay at and pleasant
people in it, so that we were glad to sit down for a week there, to
loiter about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt the old
walls; but it