Read it through once

With the publication of _Belford Regis_ there came slight periods of rest—rest, that is, from the strenuous and wearing labour of writing against time in the fulfilment of contracts. During these temporary lulls in output Miss Mitford wandered about in her small garden, watching and tending her flowers as would a mother her children. Her especial delight was in the raising of seedlings, always a source of keen pleasure to an enthusiastic gardener. To print a catalogue of all her flowers would fill a large chapter, they were so many and varied, for scarcely a letter went to any of her flower-loving friends but it contained some request for a slip of this, or a cutting from that plant, or else a word of thanks for a floral gift just received. The popularity of the author of _Our Village_ was so universal and extended to so many classes of the community that, to quote one evidence alone, it was no rare thing to find a new rose or a new dahlia figuring in contemporary florists’ lists as the “Miss Mitford” or the “Our Village,” a pretty proof, as the author herself said, “of the way in which gardeners estimate my love of flowers, that they are constantly calling plants after me, and sending me one of the first cuttings as presents. There is a dahlia now selling at ten guineas a root under my name; I have not seen the flower, but have just had one sent me (a cutting) which will of course blow in the autumn.” A delightful fancy, this, and one which obtains to this day, as witness any of the modern horticulturists’ lists.