as I can imagine.... She was disposed
to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And
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, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them,
and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and
admiration.... About herself as an author she seems to have no
reserve or secrets. She spoke with great kindness and pleasure
of a letter I brought to her from Mr. Peabody, explaining some
passage in his review of 'Helen' which had troubled her from its
allusion to her father. 'But,' she added, 'no one can know what
I owe to my father. He advised and directed me in everything. I
never could have done anything without him. There are things I
cannot be mistaken about, though other people can. I know them.'
As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person
was moved.... It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so
brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning to
past eleven at night.

She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here is her account of
another visitor:--

_Sept_. 26.--The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by
telling who among literary and scientific people we should wish
to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschell.
Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at
half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the walk, with a
letter in her hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter I
found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that he was waiting for an
answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably
surprised, and now that he is gone and that he has spent
twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to ask me the question
again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. Herschell, ma'am, if
you please.'

She still came over to England from time to time, visiting at her
sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady Beaufort; another sister, Fanny,
the object of her closest and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock
Wilson. Age brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with
tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' she writes
at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother of seventy-two, 'so