“We had known each other before, though we had never seen each other, and we shook hands as old true friends should do; and in the next moment passed through that ‘nut-shell of a house’ (her own true expression) into a perfect paradise of flowers, and flowering fragrance. We passed along the garden into the conservatory, and found her father Dr. Mitford, the worthy magistrate, and two accomplished ladies her friends. “Now, if anyone should ask me to describe more particularly this place what can I say but that it is most graphically described by the writer herself? Has she not told you that her garden is her great delight? Has she not told you that in summer she and her honoured father live principally in the conservatory (a ‘rural arcade’ as she calls it) and is it not so? And is it not a sweet summer abode with that glowing, odorous bee-haunted garden all lying before it? “As we drove [later] along those umbrageous lanes, and crossed the sweet pastoral Loddon, she stayed her pony phaeton [at times] to admire some goodly house, or picturesque parsonage, [and I noticed that] every rustic face we met brightened into smiles, and for every one she had a counter smile, or a kind passing word. Everything you see of her only shows how truly she has spread the vitality of her heart over her pages, and everything you see of the country with what accuracy she sketches.” Mary was much pleased and touched by this graceful and warm-hearted account by Mr. Howett of his visit to Three Mile Cross, and she wrote to him on the subject. In his answer, written at Nottingham, after expressing his great satisfaction at her pleasure, he goes on to say: “I shall send you a paper to-morrow containing the account of the great cricket match played here between Sussex and Nottingham.... We wished you had been there—a more animated sight of the kind you never saw.... “I could not help seeing what a wide difference twenty years has produced in the character of the English population. What a contrast in this play to bull-baiting and cock-fighting! So orderly, so manly, so generous in its character.... A sport that has no drawback of cruelty or vulgarity in it, but has every recommendation of skill, taste, health and generous rivalry. You, dear Miss Mitford,” he continues, “have done a great deal to promote this better spirit, and you could not have done more had you been haranguing Parliament, and bringing in bills for the purpose.”