On the 24th December of this same year Miss Mitford had a severe accident from an overturn of her pony-chaise in Swallowfield Park. She was thrown violently down on the hard gravel road and was much bruised and shaken although no bones were actually broken. In spite of her sufferings she indites a letter to her friend Miss Jephson in which she says: “I am writing to you at this moment with my left arm bound tightly to my body and no power of raising either foot from the ground.... The muscular power of the lower limbs seem completely gone.... So much for the bad; now for the consolation. Nobody else was hurt, nobody to blame; the two parts of me that are quite uninjured are my head and my right hand. K. is safe in bed and Sam is really everything in the way of help that a man can be, lifting me about, and directing a stupid old nurse and a giddy young maid with surprising foresight and sagacity. I need not tell you how kind everybody is; poor Lady Russell comes every day through mud and rain and wind.... Everybody comes to me, everybody writes to me, everybody sends me books. “Mr. Bentley has done me good by giving me something to think of in writing no less than three pressing applications for a second series of _Recollections_, and, although I am forbidden anything like literary composition, and even most letter writing, yet it is something to plan and consider over. I shall (if it please God to grant me health and strength to accomplish this object) introduce several chapters on French literature, and am at this moment in full chase of all Casimir Delavigne’s ballads.” Miss Jephson writes to a mutual friend when sending on this letter to him: “Dear Miss Mitford! She is like lavender, the sweeter the more it is bruised. How wonderful are her spirits and energy after such an accident!... I am glad she is thinking of a second series of _Recollections_. She cannot be idle; it would be death to her.” CHAPTER XXXIX PEACEFUL CLOSING YEARS The winter of 1852-3 was unusually cold, and Miss Mitford suffered much from rheumatism supervening upon the effects of her accident. For many months she was entirely confined to her room. She writes to her friend Mr. Fields in March: “Here I am at Easter still a close prisoner from the consequences of the accident that took place before Christmas.... But when fine weather—warm, genial, sunny weather—comes I will get down in some way or other, and trust myself to that which never hurts anyone, the honest open air. Spring, and even the approach of spring, has upon me something the effect that England has upon you. It sets me dreaming—I see leafy hedges in my dreams and flowery banks, and then I long to make the vision a reality.”