things of that dog, but Fanchon had graces and genius unique. Miss
Mitford would have joined with Hamerton, when he says, 'I humbly
thank Divine Providence for having invented dogs, and I regard that
man with wondering pity who can lead a dogless life.'

Another of Miss Mitford's great friends was John Ruskin,* and one
can well imagine how much they must have had in common. Of Miss
Mitford's writings Ruskin says, 'They have the playfulness and
purity of the "Vicar of Wakefield" without the naughtiness of its
occasional wit, or the dust of the world's great road on the other
side of the hedge. . . . '

*It is Mr. Harness who says, writing of Ruskin and Miss Mitford,
'His kindness cheered her closing days. He sent her every book that
would interest, every delicacy that would strengthen her.'

Neither the dust nor the ethics of the world of men quite belonged
to Miss Mitford's genius. It is always a sort of relief to turn
from her criticism of people, her praise of Louis Napoleon, her
facts about Mr. Dickens, whom she describes as a dull companion, or
about my father, whom she looked upon as an utter heartless
worldling, to the natural spontaneous sweet flow of nature in which
she lived and moved instinctively.

Mr. James Payn gives, perhaps, the most charming of all the
descriptions of the author of 'Our Village.' He has many letters
from her to quote from. 'The paper is all odds and ends,' he says,
'and not a scrap of it but is covered and crossed. The very flaps
of the envelopes and the outsides of them have their message.'