had a special voice with which to speak his name. He was never
among our intimate friends, but how familiar to my recollection are
the two figures, that of Mr. Harness and Miss Harness, his sister
and housekeeper, coming together along the busy Kensington roadway.
The brother and sister were like characters out of some book, with
their kind faces, their simple spiritual ways; in touch with so much
that was interesting and romantic, and in heart with so much that
suffered. I remember him with grey hair and a smile. He was not
tall; he walked rather lame; Miss Harness too was little, looking up
at all the rest of the world with a kind round face and sparkling
eyes fringed with thick lashes. Mary Mitford was indeed happy in
her friends, as happy as she was unfortunate in her nearer
relations.

With much that is sad, there is a great deal of beauty and enjoyment
in Miss Mitford's life. For her the absence of material happiness
was made up for by the presence of warm-hearted sensibility, of
enthusiasm, by her devotion to her parents. Her long endurance and
filial piety are very remarkable, her loving heart carried her
safely to the end, and she found comfort in her unreasoning life's
devotion. She had none of the restlessness which is so apt to spoil
much that might be harmonious; all the charm of a certain unity and
simplicity of motive is hers, 'the single eye,' of which Charles
Kingsley wrote so sweetly. She loved her home, her trees, her
surrounding lanes and commons. She loved her friends. Her books
and flowers are real and important events in her life, soothing and
distracting her from the contemplation of its constant anxieties.
'I may truly say,' she once writes to Miss Barrett, 'that ever since
I was a very young girl, I have never (although for some years
living apparently in affluence) been without pecuniary care,--the