commence in a few days,' says Miss
Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make
great progress.' 'Rosamond at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and
amused. Her resolutions were not idle.

'The universal difficulties of the money market in the year 1826 were
felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who since
her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it;
undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she
conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the
storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an
opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old
lady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who sold
them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown with the proceeds.

_April_ 8, 1827.--I am quite well and in high good humour and good
spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of Lovell's
half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and without
the least fatigue or anxiety to myself.

It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, the last of her
books, the only one that her father had not revised. There is a vivid
account given by one of her brothers of the family assembled in the
library to hear the manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their
pleasure as they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well equal
to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss Edgeworth, says that
the talk of Lady Davenant in 'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own
manner. His visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication of
the book. His description, if only for her mention of her father, is
worth quoting:--

As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us, a
small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely
frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into your
face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks to
you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into the
library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs.
Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very old
and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the
family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. Alison,
a physician.... Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as
full of vivacity and variety