For thirteen months, Miss More's time was largely occupied in the woman's service, and the result of her efforts was the realization of a sum exceeding three thousand dollars, which was invested for the woman's benefit under the trusteeship of Mrs. Montagu and Miss More. The result is made known in a letter from the latter to the former. "I am come to the postscript, without having found courage to tell you, what I am sure you will hear with pain; at least it gives _me_ infinite pain to write it. I mean the open and notorious ingratitude of our milk-woman. There is hardly a species of slander the poor, unhappy creature does not propagate against me, because I have called her a _milk-woman_, and because I have placed the money in the funds, instead of letting her spend it. I confess my weakness; it goes to my heart, not for my own sake, but for the sake of our common nature. So much for my _inward_ feelings; as to my _active_ resentment, I am trying to get a place for her husband, and am endeavoring to increase the sum I have raised for her. Do not let this harden _your_ heart or mine against any future object. 'Do good for its own sake' is a beautiful maxim." The milk-woman presently put her slanders into a printed shape; and Mrs. Montagu, on reading the libel, found one thing Miss More's letter had not prepared her for. Here is her comment: "Mrs. Yeardsley's conceit that _you can envy her talents_ gives me comfort, for, as it convinces me she is mad, I build upon it a hope that she is not guilty in the All-seeing Eye." The last allusion which Miss More herself makes to the behavior of "Lactilla" is on the occasion of a second publication of hers, in which the generous patroness was again, after a lapse of two years, maligned and insulted with a cool bitterness that may well be called diabolical, and is in these words, addressing Horace Walpole: "Do, dear sir, join me in sincere compassion, without one atom of resentment. If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody." Mrs. Montagu and Miss More resisted with exemplary patience the woman's violent importunities to be put in possession of the principal, as well as interest, of her little fortune, fearing that it would be consumed in those vices to which it was apparent she was addicted. At length, they gave over the trust to a respectable lawyer, who transferred it to a merchant of Bristol; and he was soon harassed into the relinquishment of the whole concern.