music through my window.'

'Do you not like to meet with good company in your friends' hearts?'
Miss Mitford says somewhere,--to no one better than to herself does
this apply. Her heart was full of gracious things, and the best of
company was ever hers, 'La fleur de la hotte,' as Madame de Sevigne
says.

We walked into the small square hall where Dr. Mitford's bed was
established after his illness, whilst visitors and all the rest of
the household came and went through the kitchen door. In the
parlour, once kept for his private use, now sat a party of homely
friends from Reading, resting and drinking tea: we too were served
with smoking cups, and poured our libation to her who once presided
in the quiet place; and then the landlady took us round and about,
showed us the kitchen with its comfortable corners and low
window-frames--'I suppose this is scarcely changed at all?' said one
of us.

'Oh yes, ma'am,' says the housekeeper--'WE uses a Kitchener, Miss
Mitford always kept an open range.'

The garden, with its sentry-box of privet, exists no longer; an iron
mission-room stands in its place, with the harmonium, the rows of
straw chairs, the table and the candlesticks de circonstance. Miss
Mitford's picture hangs on the wall, a hand-coloured copy of one of
her portraits. The kindly homely features smile from the oils, in
good humour and attentive intelligence. The sentiment of to-day is
assuredly to be found in the spirit of things rather than in their
outward signs. . . . Any one of us can feel the romance of a