186 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xiv 



Charlotte and I have great pleasure in our evening's 

 conversation with Sir James. He perceives her good 

 understanding and seems to take a pleasure in talking to 

 her. After tea he reads to us aloud some German stories 

 translated by Gillies, which being short and full of wild 

 incident, are just the things for reading aloud, and he reads 

 admirably. His spirits are pretty fair, which I wonder at 

 considering how full his thoughts are of " fair occasions 

 gone for ever by." He is now, he says, obliged to toil like 

 a labourer because he would not work when he was so 

 much better able to do it, but if he can but live to get his 

 history through the press, of which he now seems to doubt, 

 he will compound for all the rest. He is working very 

 hard, and at the same time takes as much care as he can of 

 his health, but he looks ill, and I never saw any one's hand 

 shake as his does. . . . 



The following is a fragment of a letter from Marianne 

 Thornton 1 to Hannah More. It records the beginning of a 

 devoted friendship between Fanny Mackintosh and Miss 

 Thornton, which played a large part in both their lives. 



Marianne Thornton to Hannah More. 



THE MANOR HOUSE, MILTON BRYANT, BEDS. 

 Feb. 12th, 1827. 



I found my sisters here setting up a warm friendship 

 with a new country neighbour, Miss Mackintosh, daughter 

 of the Sir James, who has Ampthill Park here, a place of 

 Lord Holland's, which his lordship has lent Sir James 

 while he writes his history. Miss Mackintosh is everything 

 his daughter should be and more, much more than anyone 

 would expect her to be very clever, full of information, yet 

 loving fun as well as any child, and abounding in life and 

 spirits. Yet as pious and devoted as if she had been a Miss 

 Wilberforce, and most anxious to do good in the wretched 



1 Sir Robert Inglis, of Milton Bryant, took charge of the large 

 family of Thorntons when their father, Henry Thornton of Batter- 

 sea Rise, and their mother both died in 1815. Marianne, the eldest 

 daughter, was only 18 at the time. 



