ternal
jealousy, in her later impressions, but Mary Mitford admired Jane Austen
always with warmest enthusiasm. She writes to her mother at length from
London, describing everything, all the people and books and experiences
that she comes across,--the elegant suppers at Brompton, the Grecian
lamps, Mr. Barker's beauty, Mr. Plummer's plainness, and the destruction
of her purple gown.

Mrs. Mitford writes back in return describing Reading festivities, 'an
agreeable dinner at Doctor Valpy's, where Mrs. Women and Miss Peacock
are present and Mr. J. Simpson, M.P.; the dinner very good, two full
courses and one remove, the soup giving place to one quarter of lamb.'
Mrs. Mitford sends a menu of every dinner she goes to.

In 1806 Dr. Mitford takes his daughter, who was then about nineteen,
to the North to visit his relations; they are entertained by the
grandparents of the Trevelyans and the Swinburnes, the Ogles and the
Mitfords of the present day. They fish in Sir John Swinburne's lake,
they visit at Alnwick Castle. Miss Mitford kept her front hair in papers
till she reached Alnwick, nor was her dress discomposed though she had
travelled thirty miles. They sat down, sixty-five to dinner, which was
'of course' (she somewhat magnificently says) entirely served on plate.
Poor Mary's pleasure is very much dashed by the sudden disappearance
of her father,--Dr. Mitford was in the habit of doing anything he felt
inclined to do at once and on the spot, quite irrespectively of the
convenience of others,--and although a party had been arranged on
purpose to meet him in the North, and his daughter was counting on his
escort to return home, (people posted in those days, they did not take
their tickets direct from Newcastle to London), Dr. Mitford one morning
leaves word that he has gone off to attend the Reading election, where
his presence was not in the least required. For the first and apparently
for the only time in her life his daughter protests. 'Mr. Ogle is
extremely offended; nothing but your immediate return can ever excuse
you to him! I IMPLORE you to return, I call upon Mamma's sense of
propriety to send you here directly. Little did I suspect that my
father, my beloved father, would desert me at this distance from home!
Every one is surprised.' Dr. Mitford was finally persuaded to travel
back to Northumberland to fetch his daughter.

The constant companionship of Dr. Mitford must have given a curious
colour to his good and