ee hundred guineas. Hannah More, as she was the artificer,
wanted also to become the manager, of the milkwoman's little fortune;
but the milkwoman thought she was competent to take care of it herself,
and wanted to bind her boys out to trades. The lady-patroness was
offended at the independence of the _protegee_, who had been taken from
under the milk-pails; Ann Yearsley dared to differ _from_ her
benefactor, and was denounced as an ungrateful woman; all Mrs. More's
idolaters _declared against_ her, and the whole religious world opened
on her in full cry."[5] Lactilla (for so the Mores and Montagus called
her) loudly remonstrated: she accused Hannah of being envious of her
talents, and announced a new edition of her poems _freed from Mrs.
More's corruptions_. She carried her point, but, deprived of Mrs. More's
favor, she quickly sank back into misfortune and obscurity.

[Illustration: WINE STREET, THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.]

The parents of Lord Macaulay were intimate friends of Mrs. More, and in
her later years Hannah watched with tender interest the brilliant
promise of that extraordinary youth. Young Macaulay was a not infrequent
visitor at Barley Wood, and Mrs. More at one time devised her library to
him, but afterward withdrew the bequest, owing to her doubts of the
"strictness" of Macaulay's views. Poor Macaulay! He failed to win the
esteem of two great female writers: the one feared he had no "religion;"
the other declared he had no "heart."

As the Misses More began to get on in the seventies, one after the other
died, and Barley Wood (or _Mauritania_, as wags called it) grew
desolate. Then occurred the last great event of Hannah's life--her
_flight_ from Barley Wood. It suddenly transpired that for three years
her eight servants had been in full enjoyment of high life below stairs
It was discovered that they had given large orders to tradesmen in her
name; they had intercepted sums of money intended for charity, and when
the whole household was supposed to be at rest they were supping on
presents of game sent to Mrs. More; they had secretly harbored in the
house one of their relatives who had lost her place for disreputable
conduct: in short, Mrs. Jellaby's household would have been a paradise
in comparison with this one. What did Hannah do? She left for ever the
home of her life: she _ran away_! A house was secretly taken at Clifton,
and after she had fled the servants received a quarter's wages in
ad