“I seem to see the dear little old lady now, looking like a venerable fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a laugh that carried you away with it. I never saw a woman with such an enjoyment of--I was about to say a joke, but the word is too coarse for her--of a pleasantry. She was the warmest of friends, and with all her love of fun never alluded to their weaknesses.... I well remember our first interview. I expected to find the authoress of _Our Village_ in a most picturesque residence, overgrown with honeysuckle and roses, and set in an old-fashioned garden. Her little cottage at Swallowfield, near Reading, did not answer this picture at all. It was a cottage, but not a pretty one, placed where three roads met, with only a piece of green before it. But if the dwelling disappointed me, the owner did not. I was ushered upstairs (for at that time, crippled by rheumatism, she was unable to leave her room) into a small apartment, lined with books from floor to ceiling, and fragrant with flowers; its tenant rose from her arm-chair with difficulty, but with a sunny smile and a charming manner bade me welcome. My father had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home and belongings as only a woman can speak of such things. Then we plunged, _in medias res_, into men and books.”--1852. LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 1690-1762 [Sidenote: Horace Walpole’s _Letters_.] “I went last night to visit her. I give you my word of honour, and you who know her will believe me without it, the following is a faithful description: I found her in a little miserable bedchamber of a ready furnished house, with two tallow candles and a bureau covered with pots and pans. On her head, in full of all accounts, she had an old black-laced hood wrapped entirely round so as to conceal all hair, or want of hair; no handkerchief, but instead of it a kind of horseman’s riding-coat, calling itself a _pet-en-l’air_, made of a dark green brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with furs; bodice laced; a full dimity petticoat, sprigged; velvet muffetees on her arms; gray stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in twenty years than I would have imagined. I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she should have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ears. She is very lively, all her senses perfect, her language as imperfect as ever, her avarice greater.” [Sidenote: Horace Walpole’s _Letters_.]