Read it through once

It was truly a sad letter, so unlike the usually bright, optimistic woman, that he would be dense indeed who failed to read in it other than evidence of a strain almost too great for this gentle woman to bear. And what of Dr. Mitford at this time? What was he doing in the matter of sharing the burden which he alone, through negligence and wicked self-indulgence, had thrust upon his daughter? Truly he was now less often in town and the famous kennel was in process of being dispersed—there was neither room nor food for greyhounds at Three Mile Cross—but short of his magisterial duties, which were, of course, unremunerated, his time was scarcely occupied. At last the fact of his daughter’s worn-out condition seems to have been borne in upon him and in her next letter to Sir William, dated in May, 1823, she has the pleasure to record: