Read it through once

Interspersed with these letters to Sir William were many kindly, womanly epistles to Mrs. Hofland and particularly to the painter, Haydon, who, poor man, was always having a quarrel with somebody; sometimes with the Academy and sometimes with his patrons. True to her sex, Miss Mitford was ever on the side of what she considered were the weak and down-trodden, and in this class she placed her friend Haydon. “Never apologize to me for talking of yourself,” she wrote to him; “it is a compliment of the highest kind. It tells me that you confide in my sympathy.”