Before the first volume of _Our Village_ had been a year in the hands of the public it had passed into three editions, and by 1826 a second volume had made its appearance, whose success was equally great. With the money gained Mary was soon enabled to add to the comforts of her small establishment. She writes to a friend in the summer of 1824: “We have a pretty little pony-chaise and pony (oh! how I should like to drive you in it!), and my dear father and mother have been out in it three or four times, to my great delight; I am sure it will do them both so much good.” Among the various letters of warm appreciation of _Our Village_ received by Miss Mitford was the following from Mrs. Hemans, written on June 6th, 1827:— “I can hardly feel that I am addressing an entire stranger in the author of _Our Village_,” she writes, “and yet I know it is right and proper that I should apologise for the liberty I am taking. But really after having accompanied you, as I have done again and again, in ‘violeting’ and seeking for wood-sorrel—after having been with you to call upon Mrs. Allen in ‘the dell,’ and becoming thoroughly acquainted with May and Lizzie, I cannot but hope you will kindly pardon my intrusion, and that my name may be sufficiently known to you to plead my cause. There are writers whose books we cannot read without feeling as if we really _had_ looked with them upon the scenes they bring before us.... Will you allow me to say that _your_ writings have this effect upon me, and that you have taught me, in making me know and love your ‘village’ so well, to wish for further knowledge also of _her_ who has so vividly impressed its dingles and copses upon my imagination, and peopled them so cheerily with healthful and happy beings? I believe if I could be personally introduced to you that I should in less than five minutes begin to enquire about Lucy and the lilies-of-the-valley, and whether you had succeeded in peopling that ‘shady border’ in your own territories with those shy flowers.” Writing to her mother from London in November, 1826, Mary says: “I hope that you have by this time received the new number of Blackwood[10] in which I am very pleasantly mentioned in the last article, the ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ.’” [Footnote 10: Blackwood’s _Edinburgh Magazine_.] It was under this title, the reader may remember, that the celebrated “Christopher North” (John Wilson) was bringing out a series of entertaining conversations on all sorts of subjects supposed to be spoken by North himself and a few fellow habitués of an old-fashioned Edinburgh inn. The character of the “Shepherd,” it seems, was drawn from James Hogg the “Ettrick Shepherd.” This is the passage alluded to by Miss Mitford—“Noctes Ambrosianæ.” “NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ” A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE SHEPHERD, NORTH, AND TICKLER SCENE—_Ambrose’s Hotel, Picardy Place, Paper Parlour_