h of the
children, of whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt.
'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. Sneyd is, and
promises everything. Henry will, I think, through life always do more
than he promises. Little Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse
with a woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. Lovell is
perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him very handsome compliments on
his lines on the Barbarini Vase in the first part of the "Botanic
Garden."'

Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at Clifton, though, as
usual, he at once improved his opportunities, paid visits to his friends
in London and elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and
correspondences.

Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had not come for her to
enjoy society, and the extreme shyness of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks
made it pain to her to be in society in those early days. 'Since I have
been away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of my
father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more than
beforehand I could have thought possible. I long to see them all again.
Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what an
aching void is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again,
'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth is reading aloud
Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which she recommends to her aunt. 'I
had much rather make a bargain with any one I loved to read the same
books with them at the same hour than to look at the moon like
Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new book for the
children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings at Home,' which they all
admire immensely.

Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age when a woman's powers
have fully ripened; a change comes over her style; there is a fulness of
description in her letters and a security of expression which show
maturity. Her habit of writing was now established, and she describes
the constant interest her father took and his share in all she did. Some
of the slighter stories she first wrote upon a slate and read out to her
brothers and sisters; others she sketched for her father's approval, and
arranged and altered as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies
were with the publishers by this time, and these were followed by
various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' Assistant,'
and of popular tales, all of whic