"partiality" for her. Her pleasure in everything makes
everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling without
art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a
literary expression to personal charm--that quality which is
almost untranslatable into written words. Many women possess
it; it is in them and issues from them, and is like an essential
oil in a flower, but too volatile to be captured and made use
of. Furthermore, women when they write are as a rule even more
conventional than men, more artificial and out of and away
from themselves.

I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I
have gone aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own
satisfaction. Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an
hour pleasantly with a book I have found myself picking up
"Our Village" from among many others, some waiting for a first
perusal, and I wanted to know why this was so--to find out, if
not to invent, some reason for my liking which would not make
me ashamed.

At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there
was no such place; and of the inns, named, I think, the
"Crown," "Cricketers," "Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and
Dragon," only one, was said to provide accommodation for
travellers as the law orders, but on going to the house we
were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, or
dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one
in. Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross
and the old ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a
wretched place, smelling of mould and dry-rot; however, it was