She is still writing from Bertram House, but her pleasant gossip
continually alternates with more urgent and less agreeable letters
addressed to her father. Lawyers' clerks are again calling with
notices and warnings, tax-gatherers are troubling. Dr. Mitford has,
as usual, left no address, so that she can only write to the 'Star
Office,' and trust to chance. 'Mamma joins in tenderest love,' so
the letters invariably conclude.

Notwithstanding the adoration bestowed by the ladies of the family
and their endearing adjectives, Mr. Harness is very outspoken on the
subject of the handsome Doctor! He disliked his manners, his
morals, his self-sufficiency, his loud talk. 'The old brute never
informed his friends of anything; all they knew of him or his
affairs, or whatever false or true he intended them to believe, came
out carelessly in his loose, disjointed talk.'

In 1814 Miss Mitford is living on still with her parents at Bertram
House, but a change has come over their home; the servants are gone,
the gravel turned to moss, the turf into pasture, the shrubberies to
thickets, the house a sort of new 'ruin half inhabited, and a
Chancery suit is hanging over their heads.' Meantime some news
comes to cheer her from America. Two editions of her poems have
been printed and sold. 'Narrative Poems on the Female Character'
proved a real success. 'All who have hearts to feel and
understandings to discriminate, must wish you health and leisure to
complete your plan,' so write publishers in those golden days, with
complimentary copies of the work. . . .

Great things are happening all this time; battles are being fought