were capable of feeling anything, by
writing to you at this time to fix her excellent image in your
mind.

As you grow older and become acquainted with more of my friends,
you will hear from every mouth the most exalted character of your
incomparable mother. You will be convinced, by your own reflections
upon her conduct, that she fulfilled the part of a mother towards
you and towards your sisters, without partiality for her own or
servile indulgence towards mine. Her heart, conscious of rectitude,
was above the fear of raising suspicions to her disadvantage in the
mind of your father or in the minds of other relatives. And though
her timely restraint of you, and that steadiness of behavior,
yielding fondness towards you only by the exact measure of your
conduct, at first alarmed those who did not know her, yet now, my
dearest daughter, every person who has the least connection with my
family is anxious to give sincere testimony to their admiration of
those very circumstances which they had too hastily, and from a
common and well-grounded opinion, associated with the idea of a
second wife.

Continue, my dear daughter, the desire which you feel of becoming
amiable, prudent and of USE. The ornamental parts of a character
with such an understanding as yours necessarily ensue; but true
judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, and the regulation
of your behavior, can be had only from reflection and from being
thoroughly convinced of what experience teaches, in general too
late, that to be happy we must be good.

God bless you and make you ambitious of that valuable praise which
the amiable character of your dear mother forces from the virtuous
and the wise. My writing to you in my present situation will, my
dearest daughter, be remembered by you as the strongest proof of
the love of

YOUR APPROVING AND AFFECTIONATE FATHER.

This letter, written at such a time, conveyed the impression intended,
and thenceforward, even more than previously, the will to act up to the
high opinion her father had formed of her character constituted the
key-note of Maria Edgeworth's life, the exciting and controlling power.

At school as well as at home Maria distinguished herself as an
entertaining story-teller. She soon learnt, with all the tact of an
_improvisatrice_, to know w