Read it through once

“Little Henry” is one of the few survivors of those who knew Miss Mitford intimately, and he has many tender memories of the kindly woman who, as time went on, made him her constant companion when she walked in the lanes and meadows in and about the neighbourhood. Woodcock Lane, of which we have already made mention, was among her favourite haunts, and thither she would take her way, with little Henry and the dogs, and while she sat with her writing-pad on her knee, would watch the eager child gathering his posies of wild flowers. “Do not gather them all, Henry,” was one of her regular injunctions on these occasions, “because some one who has not so many pretty flowers at home as we have may come this way and would like to gather some”; and sometimes she would add, “remember not to take all the flowers from one root, for the plant loves its flowers, and delights to feed and nourish them”—a pretty fancy which the child-mind could understand and appreciate. “Never repeat anything you hear which may cause pain or unhappiness to others” was a precept which often fell from her lips when speaking to the child and it was a lesson which he says he has never forgotten and has always striven to live up to in a long and somewhat arduous life spent here and abroad. Miss Mitford had a great and deep-seated objection to Mrs. Beecher Stowe. It arose principally from disapproval of certain derogatory statements about Lord Byron and his matrimonial relations which Mrs. Stowe had expressed to friends of Miss Mitford’s and which, after Miss Mitford’s death, were published in the work entitled _Lady Byron Vindicated_. The reason for this attitude of mind on Miss Mitford’s part is not difficult to understand when we remember that her great friend, William Harness, was among the earliest and dearest of Lord Byron’s friends. Thus, when _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ was published in this country, Miss Mitford refused to give any credence to the revelations it contained, and in this connection it is interesting to record that it was among the few books which she counselled the boy not to read.