Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/124

112 very lately to a gentleman in Ireland, and only the parting with the servant was added. I admit the story is ill told, and not worth telling, and you must admit that it is very natural or it would not have happened twice.

The sixpence under the seal is my third fact. This happened in our own family. One of my own grandfather's uncles forged a will, and my grandfather recovered the estate my father now possesses by the detection of the forgery of a sixpence under the seal.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. for liking the two Clays. But pray don't envelope all the country gentleman of England in English Clay.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, says my father, for liking Lady Jane Grandville. Her ladyship is his favourite, but nobody has ever mentioned her in their letters but you. I cannot belive [sic] that you ever resembled that selfish, hollow Lady Angelica. Would you over have guessed that the character of Rosamond is likeM. E.? All who know me intimately say it is as like as it is possible. Those who do not know me intimately would never guess it.

Harrington came next. The idea of writing a story of which the hero should be a Jew was not her own, but suggested by an unknown correspondent in the United States, a Jewish lady, who gently reproached her for having so often made Jews ridiculous, and begged she would write a story that should treat of a good Jew. Scarcely was it finished than she began Ormond. In February 1817 she read the first chapter to her father as they were driving out to pay a visit, the last Mr. Edgeworth ever paid. His health had become a source of grave anxiety, and though he masked all his sufferings with cheerfulness and touching unselfishness, it was too evident that his case was serious. The interest and delight he took in Ormond, and his desire to see the story finished, encouraged Miss Edgeworth to go on.

Her stepmother writes:

In all her anguish of mind at the state of his health, Maria, by a wonderful effort of affection and genius, produced those gay and brilliant pages, some of the gayest and most brilliant she