Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/172

160 and beloved. A few extracts from her London letters best reflect her life:—

Yesterday we went, the moment we had swallowed our breakfast, by appointment to Newgate. The private door opened at sight of our tickets, and the great doors and the little doors, and the thick doors, and doors of all sorts, were unbolted and unlocked, and on we wont through dreary but clean passages, till we came to a room where rows of empty benches fronted us, and a table, on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and gentlemen entered and took their seats on benches at either side of the table, in silence.

Enter Mrs Pry in a drab-coloured silk cloak, and plain borderless Quaker cap; a most benevolent countenance—Guido Madonna face—calm, benign. "I must make an inquiry, is Maria Edgeworth here, and where?" I went forward: she bade us come and sit beside her. Her first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget. The prisoners came in, and in an orderly manner ranged themselves on the benches. All quite clean faces, hair, caps, and hands. On a very low bench in front, little children were seated and were settled by their mothers. Almost all these women, about thirty, were under sentence of transportation, seme few only were for imprisonment. One who did net appear was under sentence of death—frequently women when sentenced to death lie, vine ill and unable to attend Mrs. Fry; the others come regularly and voluntarily.

She opened the Bible, and read in the must sweetly solemn, sedate voice I ever heard, slowly and distinctly, without anything in the manner that could distract attention from the matter. Sometimes she paused to explain, which she did with great judgment, addressing the convicts. "We have felt; we are convinced." They wore very attentive, unexpectedly interested, I thought, in all she said, and touched by her manner. There was nothing put on in their countenances, not any appearance of hypocrisy. I studied their countenances carefully, hut I could not see any which, without knowing to whom they belonged, I should have decided was bad ; yet Mrs. Pry assured mo that all those women had been of the worst sort. She confirmed what we have read and heard, that it was by their love of their children that she first obtained influence over these abandoned women. When she first took notice of one or two of their fine children, the mothers said that if she could hut save their children from the misery they had gone through in vice, they would do anything she hid them. And when they sail the change made in their children by her schooling, they begged to attend themselves. I could not have conceived that the love of their children could have remained so strong in hearts in which every other feeling of virtue had so long