_Tickler._ Master Christopher North, there’s Miss Mitford, author of _Our Village_, an admirable person in all respects, of whom you have never, to my recollection, taken any notice in the Magazine. What is the meaning of that?... _North._ I am waiting for her second volume. Miss Mitford has not, in my opinion, either the pathos or humour of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners. Her writings breathe a sound, pure and healthy morality, and are pervaded by a genuine rural spirit—the spirit of merry England. Every line bespeaks the lady. _Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi’ sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seein’ themselves in lookin’-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o’ me is her pictures o’ poachers and tinklers ... and o’ huts and hovels without riggin’ by the wayside, and the cottages o’ honest, puir men and byres and barns.... And merry-makin’s at winter-ingles, and courtships aneath trees atween lads and lasses as laigh in life as the servants in her father’s ha’. That’s the puzzle, and that’s the praise. But ae word explains a’—Genius—Genius—wull a’ the metaphizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monysyllable? _Tickler._ Monosyllable, James, did you say? _Shepherd._ Ay—monysyllable. Does na that mean a word o’ three syllables? _North_ (in a later review). The young gentlemen of England should be ashamed o’ thirselves fo’ letten her name be Mitford. They should marry her, whether she wull or no, for she would mak boith a useful and agreeable wife. Thet’s the best creetishism on her warks. CHAPTER XXIV A COUNTRY-SIDE ROMANCE The framework of these stories—that is all that concerns Miss Mitford herself, who figures not only as the narrator but as an actor in the scenes described—is, for the most part, she tells us, strictly true. Thus in giving quotations from her charming tales we are giving also passages from her own daily life, and so we seem to see her walking about the country lanes visiting the cottages or farm-houses, and even to hear her conversing with the villagers. [Illustration: OLD BERKSHIRE FARM] In a story entitled _Patty’s New Hat_, Mary Mitford writes:—