| TO FACE PAGE | ||
| My Cottage in “Our Village” | [Frontispiece] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three | [20] | |
| “Kendrick View,” Reading | [40] | |
| Doctor Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) | [62] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a drawing by Slater) | [102] | |
| “Our Village” in 1913 | [198] | |
| Woodcock Lane, Three Mile Cross | [210] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Miss Drummond) | [226] | |
| The old Wheelwright’s Shop at “Our Village” | [236] | |
| Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross in 1913 | [242] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Haydon) | [260] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) | [290] | |
| Miss Mitford (from a sketch in Fraser’s Magazine) | [300] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a drawing by F. R. Say) | [322] | |
| Miss Mitford in 1837 (from Chorley’s Authors of England) | [328] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) | [334] | |
| A View in Swallowfield Park | [340] | |
| Mr. George Lovejoy, Bookseller, of Reading | [364] | |
| The “House of Seven Gables,” on the road to Swallowfield | [370] | |
| Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Swallowfield (from a contemporary engraving) | [374] | |
| Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Swallowfield in 1913 | [380] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) | [384] | |
| Mary Russell Mitford (from a pencil sketch) | [386] | |
| Swallowfield Churchyard | [388] | |
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN ALRESFORD
Within the stained but, happily, well-preserved registers of the Church of St. John the Baptist, New Alresford, Hampshire, is an entry which runs thus:—
No. 211.
George Midford of this parish, Batchelor, and Mary Russell of the same, Spinster. Married in this Church by Licence this Seventeenth day of October in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-five by me, Will Buller,[1] Rector.
| This Marriage was | { | George Midford, |
| solemnized between us | { | Mary Russell. |
| In the presence of | { | Jno. Harness, |
| { | Elizabeth Anderson. |
It is a prosaic enough entry and yet, as we shall endeavour to prove, it marked the beginning of a tragedy composed of the profligacy and wicked extravagance of one of its signatories, of the foolish, docile acquiescence of the
other, and of the equally foolish and docile, but incomprehensible, infatuation for the profligate one which Mary Russell Mitford, the child of this union, made the guiding principle of her life.
George Midford—or Mitford, as he subsequently spelt his name—was the son of Francis Midford, Esq., of Hexham (descended from the ancient house of Midford,[2] of Midford Castle, near Morpeth), and of his wife Jane, formerly Miss Jane Graham, of Old Wall in Westmoreland, related to the Grahams of Netherby.
He was born at Hexham, November 15, 1760, received his early education at Newcastle School, studied for the profession of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and was for three years a house pupil of the celebrated John Hunter, in London.
At the conclusion of his studies young Midford, or Mitford as we shall henceforth speak of him, went on a visit to a relative—Dr. Ogle, then Dean of Winchester—through whom he obtained an introduction to Miss Mary Russell, then living alone in the adjacent town of Alresford.