Dr. Mitford had continued to squander the small means of the household to the last, and so powerless was his daughter to prevent this (without giving him great pain) that she remarks in a letter to one with whom she was intimate: “I have to provide for expenses over which I have no more control than my own dog Dash.” When the true state of affairs became known Miss Mitford was faced with a list of liabilities amounting to nearly £1000, but her determination was at once taken that all the creditors should have complete satisfaction. “Everybody shall be paid,” she exclaimed, “if I have to sell the gown off my back, or pledge my little pension.” But this could never be allowed. Her friends and admirers were eager to show their desire to help one who, by her beautiful writings and unselfish life, had done so much for the good of humanity. Miss Mitford was astonished and touched by the letters she received. “I only pray God,” she writes, “that I may deserve half that has been said of me.” Money was subscribed on all sides, and by the month of March following nearly the whole thousand pounds had already been handed over to her, whilst in addition to this some hundreds of pounds were promised. Many, too, were the acts of kind and unostentatious attention that were showered upon her and which went straight to her heart. Conspicuous among these was the welcome act of her friend Mr. George Lovejoy, the well-known bookseller of Reading, in supplying her with books. He was a man of considerable learning, and his library was noted from its earliest days for its fine collection of foreign works, which made it especially valuable to Miss Mitford, whose love of French literature was so marked. Writing to a friend who had offered to lend her some books she explains that she has already seen them. “I have at this moment,” she writes, “eight sets of books belonging to Mr. Lovejoy. I have every periodical within a week, often getting them literally the day before publication.” About this time a source of happiness came into Mary Mitford’s life in the shape of a little child of two years old, the son of her attached servant K——, whom she soon looked upon as a son of the household, and who as time went on became her constant little companion in her strolls about the country. A few years later Mary was suffering from an attack of lameness and she had recourse for help to that same “historic staff” whose loss had caused so much bustle and excitement in the village of Three Mile Cross. [Illustration: Verses written by M. R. Mitford, July 12th 1847] “Long before little Henry could open the outer door, there he would stand,” she writes, “the stick in one hand, and, if it were summer, a flower in the other, waiting for my going out, the pretty Saxon boy with his upright figure, his golden hair, his eyes like two stars, and his bright intelligent smile.”