The Argosy — page 131: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

114 Mary Russell Mitford. This shadow was caused by the incorrigible, boundless extravagance of Dr. Mitford, her father. He quickly ran through the fortune of his wife, who was an heiress, and after that he did the same by a second fortune which was left him by one of his own relations. After this second exploit, he and his family were forced to leave Bertram House, their comfortable home of several years’ standing, and to retire into a cottage at Three Mile Cross. No doubt Mary Mitford often wished that things, in this respect, might have been different with her father’s character, but this fault of his, and all the many discomforts and deprivations which it must have brought upon her, never seem fora moment to have dimmed, in the faintest degree, the flame of her great love for him. Directly she arrived at the cot- tage at Three Mile Cross, she set about making it, what it soon became, one of the brightest and prettiest little homes that ever man entered; her cheery, energetic nature rather rejoicing than otherwise in the task. And later on in Dr. Mitford’s life, when he had com- pletely emptied his own pockets, his daughter refilled them willingly with her literary earnings. Mrs. Mitford died some time before her husband, and father and daughter lived on for several years alone together. Her mother’s loss was one of the few great griefs of Mary Mitford’s life, for the close, intimate affection and entire confidence between the two had been more like the tie that joins sisters than that which unites in general parent and child. She struggled bravely, however, against her sorrow, and found relief for it in literary work, in redoubled devotion to her father, and in wider spreading sympathies which drew more and more friends towards her. That cottage at Three Mile Cross shows a wondrously animated scene ; a scene full of figures that rouse our love and interest, as we glance into it during the days when Mary Mitford and her father lived there together. Let us enter the trim garden, so brightly starred with flowers, one summer afternoon, and try for a moment to describe what we see there. We must tread carefully, or we shall disturb some of the many members of the canine family who are lying stretched at ease, or otherwise taking their pleasure on all sides, and shall call forth a whimper or a petulant growl, the sound of which will gain for us no favour in the eyes of the master and mistress of the place, with whom their pets are not animals, but regular per- sonalities. There are dogs everywhere ; in the garden, in the draw- ing-room, in attendance at the dinner-table. ‘Two lovely Scotch terriers are gambling on the lawn, a greyhound is slumbering in the porch, a curly spaniel on the doorstep, a splendid deerhound is majestically taking a constitutional up and down the gravel walk, It is a perfect dogs’ paradise, where all their whims are allowed full scope, and all their habits and customs respected, |, | But to turn from the dogs to the men and women present, Here are two elderly gentlemen walking to and fro leisurely in the ! ; , : : . Gomicbooks (E(o)