Curiously enough some early prints of the cottage are very misleading. A limner at a distance has evidently tried to make a pleasing drawing from some very imperfect sketch done on the spot, which did not reveal the fact that the right-hand portion of the house recedes, and that the front door is not in the middle but on one side. Thus a report arose that the cottage had been rebuilt in later years. But happily we possess conclusive evidence to the contrary given by a gentleman still living who passed his childhood in the cottage almost as an adopted son of the household. When visiting the place a few years ago he declared that the cottage was unchanged, and recalled, as he passed from room to room, his happy associations with each spot. The house is now used as a working man’s club, and the caretaker is ready to show the place to any visitors desirous to see the home of Miss Mitford. Behind the house on part of the site of Miss Mitford’s garden there is a large edifice built called the “Mitford Hall,” which is used as an Institute for the working classes, and is a source of much good to the neighbourhood. But happily it stands well back and cannot be seen by the visitor who gazes at the cottage from the village street, and who is glad to dwell only on what is connected with Miss Mitford’s residence in the place. In the sketch of the cottage given the reader will observe that the windows have been drawn as they were formerly and a few other small alterations made. [Illustration: THE WRITING PARLOUR] The cottage consists of a ground floor with one storey only above it. The casement window in the receding portion of the cottage, just below the shelving roof, belongs to Miss Mitford’s study, a quaint little room where at a small table she used to write her stories of village life. The window looks down upon the “shoemaker’s” little shop, with its pointed roof and tiny window panes. It must be quite unchanged in appearance since Miss Mitford described it, the sole alteration being in the business carried on there, as it and the collar-maker’s quaint shop at the top of the village have exchanged trades.