Mr. Payn went to see her at Swallowfield, and describes the small
apartment lined with books from floor to ceiling and fragrant with
flowers. 'Its tenant rose from her arm-chair with difficulty, but
with a sunny smile and a charming manner bade me welcome. My father
had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home and
belongings as only a woman can speak of such things, then we plunged
into medea res, into men and books. She seemed to me to have known
everybody worth knowing from the Duke of Wellington to the last new
verse-maker. And she talked like an angel, but her views upon
poetry as a calling in life, shocked me not a little. She said she
preferred a mariage de convenance to a love match, because it
generally turned out better. "This surprises you," she said,
smiling, "but then I suppose I am the least romantic person that
ever wrote plays." She was much more proud of her plays, even then
well-nigh forgotten, than of the works by which she was well known,
and which at that time brought people from the ends of the earth to
see her. . . .

'Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved. If I had not
known all about him from my own folk I should have thought her
father had been a patriot and a martyr. She spoke of him as if
there had never been such a father--which in a sense was true.'

Mr. Payn quotes Miss Mitford's charming description of K., 'for whom
she had the highest admiration.' 'K. is a great curiosity, by far
the cleverest woman in these parts, not in a literary way [this was
not to disappoint me], but in everything that is useful. She could
make a Court dress for a duchess or cook a dinner for a Lord Mayor,
but her principal talent is shown in managing everybody whom she
comes near. Especially her husband and myself; she keeps the money