One day the stick was not to be found in its usual place in the hall, “it was missing, was gone, was lost!” A great search was made for it far and wide. “Really, ma’am,” quoth her faithful maid, “there is some comfort in the interest the people take in the stick! If it were anything alive—the pony, or Fanchon, or ourselves—they could not be more sorry. Master Brent, ma’am, at the top of the street, he promises to speak to everybody, so does William Wheeler, who goes everywhere, and Mrs. Bromley at the shop; and the carrier and the postman. I daresay the whole parish knows it by this time! I have not been outside the gate to-day, but a dozen people have asked me if we had heard of _our_ stick!” The bustle of the village and the anxiety of Mary were, however, soon to be allayed. “At ten o’clock one evening a rustling of the front door latch was heard, together with a pattering of little feet, then the little feet advanced into the house and some little tongues gained courage to tell their good news—the stick was found! An intimate friend of Miss Mitford’s, a certain Miss James, of Binfield Park, had been staying for a short time at the inn hard by, on which occasion Mary addressed the following lines to her:— “The village inn! The wood-fire burning bright, The solitary taper’s flickering light! The lowly couch! the casement swinging free! My noblest friend, was this a place for thee? Yet in that humble room, from all apart, We poured forth mind for mind and heart for heart, Ranging from idlest words and tales of mirth To the deep mysteries of heaven and earth. * * * * * No fitting place; yet (inconsistent strain And selfish) come, I prythee! come again.” * * * * * In a story entitled _The Black Velvet Bag_ Miss Mitford has given an amusing account of some of her shopping experiences in “Belford Regis,” her name for Reading, where the various purchases for the small household of Three Mile Cross were usually made. “Last Friday fortnight,” she writes, “was one of those anomalies in the weather with which we English people are visited for our sins; a day of intolerable wind and insupportable dust, an equinoctial gale out of season, a piece of March unnaturally foisted into the very heart of May.... On that day did I set forth to the good town of B—— on the feminine errand called shopping. I am a true daughter of Eve, a dear lover of bargains and bright colours, and, knowing this, have generally been wise enough to keep as much as I can out of temptation. At last a sort of necessity arose for some slight purchases. The shopping was inevitable, and I undertook the whole concern at once, most heroically resolving to spend just so much and no more, and half comforting myself that I had a full morning’s work of indispensables and should have no time for extraneous extravagances.