It is from Swallowfield that she writes: 'I have fell this blessing
of being able to respond to new friendships very strongly lately,
for I have lost many old and valued connections during this trying
spring. I thank God far more earnestly for such blessings than for
my daily bread, for friendship is the bread of the heart.'

It was late in life to make such warm new ties as those which
followed her removal from Three Mile Cross; but some of the most
cordial friendships of her life date from this time. Mr. James Payn
and Mr. Fields she loved with some real motherly feeling, and Lady
Russell who lived at the Hall became her tender and devoted friend.

VI.

We went down to Reading the other day, as so many of Miss Mitford's
friends have done before, to look at 'our village' with our own
eyes, and at the cottage in which she lived for so long. A phaeton
with a fast-stepping horse met us at the station and whirled us
through the busy town and along the straight dusty road beyond it.
As we drove along in the soft clouded sunshine I looked over the
hedges on either side, and I could see fields and hedgerows and red
roofs clustering here and there, while the low background of blue
hills spread towards the horizon. It was an unpretentious homely
prospect intercepted each minute by the detestable advertisement
hoardings recommending this or that rival pill. 'Tongues in trees'
indeed, in a very different sense from the exiled duke's experience!
Then we come within sight of the running brook, uncontaminated as
yet; the river flowing cool and swift, without quack medicines
stamped upon its waters: we reach Whitley presently, with its
pretty gabled hostel (Mrs. Mitford used to drive to Whitley and back