Alas! he was too long in dying; she was worn out by then, the little heart beating not so fast, and the bright little brain growing dim and very tired.
Now all the ambitious stuff she wrote to keep the cormorant and, incidentally, to immortalize herself, has fallen deservedly into oblivion.

But we--some of us--do not forget and never want to forget Mary Russell Mitford.

Her letters remain--the little friendly letters which came from her pen like balls of silvery down from a sun-ripened plant, and were wafted far and wide over the land to those she loved.
There is a wonderful charm in them; they are so spontaneous, so natural, so perfectly reflect her humour and vivacity, her overflowing sweetness, her beautiful spirit.

And one book too remains--the series of sketches about the poor little hamlet, in which she lived so long and laboured so hard to support herself and her parents, the turtledove mated with a cormorant.

Driven to produce work and hard up for a subject, in a happy moment she took up this humble one lying at her own door and allowed her self to write naturally even as in her most intimate letters.