more---tragedies; she wants the money badly; for the editor of her
magazine has absconded, owing her 50 pounds. Some trying and
bewildering quarrel then ensues between Charles Kemble and Macready,
which puts off her tragedies, and sadly affects poor Miss Mitford's
nerves and profits. She has one solace. Her father, partly
instigated, she says, by the effect which the terrible feeling of
responsibility and want of power has had upon her health and
spirits, at last resolves to try if he can HIMSELF obtain any
employment that may lighten the burthen of the home. It is a good
thing that Dr. Mitford has braced himself to this heroic
determination. 'The addition of two or even one hundred a year to
our little income, joined to what I am, in a manner, sure of gaining
by mere industry, would take a load from my heart of which I can
scarcely give you an idea. . . even "Julian" was written under a
pressure of anxiety which left me not a moment's rest. . . .' So
she fondly dwells upon the delightful prospects. Then comes the
next letter to Sir William Elford, and we read that her dear father,
'relying with a blessed sanguineness on my poor endeavours, has not,
I believe, even inquired for a situation, and I do not press the
matter, though I anxiously wish it; being willing to give one more
trial to the theatre.'

On one of the many occasions when Miss Mitford writes to her trustee
imploring him to sell out the small remaining fragment of her
fortune, she says, 'My dear father has, years ago, been improvident,
is still irritable and difficult to live with, but he is a person of
a thousand virtues. . . there are very few half so good in this
mixed world; it is my fault that this money is needed, entirely my
fault, and if it be withheld, my dear father will be overthrown,
mind and body, and I shall never know another happy hour.'