ild romance.

It is almost possible, in Miss Edgeworth's works, to venture to point
out the passages that have been tampered with and those where she has
been allowed free play. Thus there are portions of _Belinda_ in which
she is as much at her best as in _Castle Rackrent_, or other of her
masterpieces. Who but she could have penned the lively description given
by Sir Philip Baddeley of the fetes at Frogmore? How exquisitely is this
ill-natured fool made to paint himself, how truthful is the picture,
free from any taint of exaggeration! Sir Philip's endeavor to disgust
Belinda with Clarence Harvey, his manner of attempting it, and his final
proposal, is a very masterpiece of caustic humor.

_Belinda_ was no favorite with Miss Edgeworth. Writing to Mrs. Barbauld
some years later, she says:--

Belinda is but an uninteresting personage after all.... I was not
either in _Belinda_ or _Leonora_ sufficiently aware that the
_goodness_ of a heroine interests only in proportion to the perils
and trials to which it is exposed.

And again, after revising it for republication, she says:--

I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or
stone, Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces; really
I have not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the
hackney coachman said, "Mend _you_! Better make a new one."

Miss Edgeworth was therefore capable of self-criticism. Indeed, at no
time did she set even a due value on her own work, still less an
exaggerated one. To the day of her death she sincerely believed that all
the honor and glory she had reaped belonged of right to her father
alone. But there was yet another reason why Miss Edgeworth never liked
_Belinda_. She was staying at Black Castle when the first printed copy
reached her. Before her aunt saw it she contrived to tear out the
title-pages of the three volumes, and Mrs. Ruxton thus read it without
the least suspicion as to its authorship. She was much delighted, and
insisted on reading out to her niece passage after passage. Miss
Edgeworth pretended to be deeply interested in some book she was herself
reading, and when Mrs. Ruxton exclaimed, "Is not that admirably
written?" replied, "Admirably read, I think." "It may not be so very
good," added Mrs. Ruxton, "but it shows just the sort of knowledge of
high life which people have who live in the world." But in vain she
appealed to Miss Edgeworth for sym