Read it through once

With the introduction to Miss Barrett a new correspondent was added to the already large list with whom Miss Mitford kept in touch, and from the middle of the year 1836 the letters between the two friends were frequent and voluminous. The early ones from Three Mile Cross display an amusing motherliness on the part of their writer, containing frequent references to the necessity of cultivating style and clearness of expression, all of which Miss Barrett took in good part and promised to bear in mind. But in this matter of letter-writing Miss Mitford was really expending herself too much—it was a weakness which she could never overcome—and the consequence was that she either neglected her work or performed it when the household was asleep. Then, still further obstacles to a steady output arrived in the person of the painter Lucas, who wanted to paint another portrait of his friend, and was only put off by being allowed to paint the Doctor, the sittings for which were given at Bertram House, then in the occupation of Captain Gore, a genial friend of the Mitfords. The portrait was a great success, every one praising it. “It is as like as the looking-glass,” wrote the delighted daughter to Miss Jephson. “Beautiful old man that he is! and is the pleasantest likeness, the finest combination of power, and beauty, and sweetness, and spirit, that ever you saw. Such a piece of colour, too! The painter _used all his carmine the first day_, and was forced to go into Reading for a fresh supply. He says that my father’s complexion is exactly like the sunny side of a peach, and so is his picture. Imagine how grateful I am! He has come all the way from London to paint this picture as a present to me.”