Read it through once

The natural result was that, upon her father’s recovery, she was stricken down from sheer exhaustion and kept to her bed for weeks. Convalescent, she went out in the pony-chaise for an airing with Kerenhappuck her maid and companion, during which a trace broke and the pony bolted. They tore madly along the road, past frightened men who could do nothing to stop the brute, and with the maid sawing ineffectually at the reins which, for greater power, she had wound about her arms. Soon the turnpike-gate was neared, adding to the fear of the terrorized women, who dreaded lest the pony, a famous hunter, would leap it, with results too dreadful to think of. Fortunately the gate-keeper saw them just in time and flung the gate open. On they went in this mad fashion until, by good fortune, the remaining trace pulled the collar in such a way that the pony was nearly choked and he was brought to a standstill. “And since then,” wrote Miss Mitford, “I have been very ill. I have not sent for Dr. May. I seldom do, for it frightens my father. After all, a wretched life is mine. Health is gone; but if I can but last while my dear father requires me; if the little money we have can but last, then it would matter little how soon I, too, were released. We live alone in the world, and I feel that neither will long outlast the other. My life is only valuable as being useful to _him_. I have lived for him and him only; and it seems to me, God, in His infinite mercy, does release those who have so lived, nearly at the same time. The spring is broken, and the watch goes down.” With her energies thus reduced, work was at a standstill; the brain refused to be driven, and as no work meant no pay, the household once again drifted into debt, adding fresh terrors to the already over-taxed mind. Misfortunes never come alone and, when the outlook was almost too gloomy to be faced, the Findens stopped payment for work done, a double calamity in that this meant the closing of another source of employment. Creditors became importunate and threatening, and this resulted in another appeal to William Harness that certain of the money still available for use should be taken from investment and devoted to the immediate and pressing needs of the household. “Could you know all I have to undergo and suffer, you would wonder that I am alive—you would rather wonder that I have lived through the winter than that I have failed to provide the means of support for our little household.... It has been all my fault now, and if that fault be visited upon my father’s white head, and he be sent to jail for my omissions, I should certainly not long remain to grieve over my sin, for such it is.... If you refuse, he may be sent to jail, which he would not survive; or if he survived, it would be with a spirit so broken that he would never leave his arm-chair, which (to say nothing of the misery) would totally disable me from working in any way.”