Shortly after Dr. Mitford’s death there came into her life a little boy named Henry Taylor—frequently alluded to as “K——’s little boy” in her letters, and as “little Henry” in the Recollections, but not to be confounded with the “little Henry” of Our Village, who was a lad sometimes hired by the Doctor for the performance of odd jobs.
Henry Taylor was born in Reading—the child of K——, Miss Mitford’s companion and hemmer of flounces—and at the mistress’s own request the boy was brought to live at her cottage when he was just upon two years old. He came as a new and welcome interest into her life and, while she petted and spoiled him, gave him wise and tender counsel. “A little boy, called Henry,” she wrote of him in her Recollections, “the child of the house (son, by the way, to the hemmer of flounces), has watched my ways, and ministered unbidden to my wants and fancies. Long before he could open the outer door, before, indeed, he was half the height of the wand in question” [her favourite walking-stick], “there he would stand, the stick in one hand, and if it were summer time, a flower in the other, waiting for my going out, the pretty Saxon boy, with his upright figure, his golden hair, his eyes like two stars, and his bright, intelligent smile! We were so used to see him there, silent and graceful as a Queen’s page, that when he returned to school after the holidays, and somebody else presented the stick and the rose, I hardly cared to take them. It seemed as if something was wrong, I missed him so! Most punctual of petted children!”
Whilst the child was at boarding-school in Reading, a rather serious outbreak of smallpox in the town, and particularly in a house adjoining the School, necessitated his being sent home to the cottage without delay, though not, unfortunately, in time to prevent his being infected. He was extremely ill and his life, at times, despaired of, the mother and Miss Mitford taking it by turns to watch over and nurse him. In the Recollections there is a most touching reference to this incident, which proves how strong was Miss Mitford’s affection for the child, how much a mother’s heart was hers. Quoting from Leigh Hunt’s poetry, she says:—“There is yet another poem for which I must make room. Every mother knows these pathetic stanzas. I shall never forget attempting to read them to my faithful maid, whose fair-haired boy, her pet and mine, was then recovering from a dangerous illness. I attempted to read these verses, and did read as many as I could for the rising in the throat—the hysterica passio of poor Lear—and as many as my auditor could hear for her own sobs.” And then she quotes those beautiful verses:—“To T. L. H., six years old, during a sickness.”
“Sleep breathes at last from out thee,
My little patient boy;
And balmy rest about thee—
Smooths off the day’s annoy.
I sit me down and think
Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish with sudden shrink