roduced the subject,
and never seemed glad to continue it. Indeed, though he watched
carefully for it, he could not detect either any of the mystification or
the vanity of authorship. He was struck with her good nature and desire
to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could, though never
so far as to be unreasonable.

"In her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, referring
constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the authority in all
matters of fact, and most kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt,
Mrs. Sneyd, who cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most
unbounded affection and admiration."

The dispersion of so many members of her family imposed much
letter-writing on Miss Edgeworth, for all turned to her graphic pen for
news of the dear old home. And, as before when she was away, those she
left behind had to share in her pleasures, or they would be but sorry
pleasures to her. Death, as well as marriages, had thinned the family
ranks. Tenacious and warm in her affections as she was, Miss Edgeworth
never took a morbid view concerning those who were gone. Everything
morbid was foreign to her nature.

There is something mournful, yet pleasingly painful, in the sense
of the ideal presence of the long-loved dead. Those images people
and fill the mind with unselfish thoughts, and with the salutary
feeling of responsibility and constant desire to be and to act in
this world as the superior friend would have wished and approved.

And there were so many still left to love, young and old. "Who would not
like to live to be old if they could be so happy in friends as I am?"
The enthusiastic affection in her peculiar family relations, which she
kept unimpaired, cannot be better shown than by quoting one of the
countless letters she wrote concerning those dear to her:--

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, NOV. 1, 1838.

MY DEAR MR. AND MRS. TICKNOR:

I know so well your kind feelings towards all this family, that I
am sure you will be pleased with the intelligence which I am going
to communicate to you.

My sister Honora is going to be happily married to a person every
way suited to her (and that is saying a great deal), as you who
most kindly and justly appreciated her will readily join with me in
thinking. The gentleman's name, Captain Beaufort, R. N., perhaps
you may be acquainted with, as he is in a public situa