where the
sisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled to
meet her.

It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady coming
along to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on the
side of the road. 'Look to the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr.
Edgeworth; and when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the
body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car.

The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the late
Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of the
first family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were also
four daughters and three sons at home.

All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of the
family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; but
from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the
promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate
friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with the most
generous confidence.

Those times were even more serious than they are now; we hear of Mr.
Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am
going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing
in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands
before me would not make any one of us one degree safer.... Simple
Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to
England.'... 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she
continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh!
French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see
everybody as happy as ourselves.'

On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that
the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at
Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My
father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully
in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not
yet arrived from Dublin.... We, who are so near the scene of action,
cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actually
landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.'

The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in
charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection
as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Hal