As a rule Miss Mitford’s judgment, both of books and of character, was singularly sane, but there were some exceptions, her admiration of Louis Napoleon being one of “her most potent crazes,” as a warm friend styled it. She believed that his becoming Emperor would work much good for France, but had she lived long enough to become acquainted with his real character and to witness its baleful influence upon the nation we feel sure she would have changed her opinion. [Illustration: OLD HOUSE NEAR SWALLOWFIELD] Among the many visitors from all parts to Three Mile Cross who were desirous to see the author of _Our Village_ there was a certain Dr. Spencer T. Hall, who had been giving lectures on scientific subjects at Reading. He recorded his pleasant experiences in an article published in a newspaper of the day of which we have a copy before us. After describing Miss Mitford’s cottage by the roadside he goes on to say: “A good garden at the back of the house produced some of the finest geraniums and strawberries in the kingdom; and with presents of these to her London or country friends she could gracefully, and to them very agreeably, repay their occasional presents of new books and game, for no woman stood higher in the estimation of some of the ‘county families’ than did that cottage peeress, on whom they continued their calls and compliments just as in more showy if not more happy days. In a corner at the end of the garden there was a rustic summer-house, and this was where our little party took tea, to which the hostess, by her quiet, unaffected conversation, added a charm that will be more easily understood than I can otherwise describe it when I say that it was rich and piquant as her village stories or that pleasant gossip to be found in the volume she afterwards published under the title of _Recollections of a Literary Life_, and with which I trust the whole country for its own sake is now familiar.” The reader may remember mention being made earlier in this work of the wheelwright’s picturesque workshop in the village of Three Mile Cross, which stands at the turn of Church Lane near to the village pond. Writing to a friend in November, 1850, Mary Mitford remarks: “Just now I have been much interested in a painting that has been going on in the corner of our village street—the inside of an old wheelwright’s shop—a large barn-like place open to the roof, full of detail, with the light admitted through the half of hatch doors, and spreading upwards. It is a fine subject, and finely treated. The artist is one not yet much known of the name of Pasmore.... It is capitally peopled too—with children picking up chips and watching an old man sharpening a saw and peeping in through windows, stretching up to look through them.”