garden spread the fields, ripening in the late July, and turning to
gold. The farmer and his son were at work with their scythes; the
birds were still flying, the sweet scents were in the air.

From a lady who had known her, 'my own Miss Anne' of the letters, we
heard something more that day of the author of 'Our Village'; of her
charming intellect, her gift of talk, her impulsiveness, her
essential sociability, and rapid grace of mind. She had the faults
of her qualities; she jumped too easily to conclusions; she was too
much under the influence of those with whom she lived. She was born
to be a victim,--even after her old tyrant father's death, she was
more or less over-ridden by her servants. Neighbours looked
somewhat doubtfully on K. and Ben, but they were good to her, on the
whole, and tended her carefully. Miss Russell said that when she
and her brother took refuge in the cottage, one morning from a
storm, while they dried themselves by the fire, they saw the careful
meal carried up to the old lady, the kidneys, the custard, for her
dejeuner a la fourchette.

When Miss Mitford died, she left everything she had to her beloved
K. and to Ben, except that she said she wished that one book from
her well-stocked library should be given to each of her friends.
The old Doctor, with all his faults, had loved books, and bought
handsome and valuable first editions of good authors. K. and Ben
also seem to have loved books and first editions. To the Russells,
who had nursed Miss Mitford, comforted her, by whose gates she
dwelt, in whose arms she died, Ben brought, as a token of
remembrance, an old shilling volume of one of G. P. R. James's
novels, which was all he could bear to part with. A prettier
incident was told me by Miss Russell, who once went to visit Miss