Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/230

218 Prudence of M. E., Act 2: Summoned Cassidy, and informed him that I was to wind up the clock, and that he was promoted to take off the top for me; and then up I went and wound the clock, and wound it as I had done before you were born, as there is nothing easier, only to see that it is not going to maintain at the very instant, which is plainly to be noted by the position of the maintaining pin on the little outer wheel relative to the first deep tooth. You see I am not quite a nincompoop. I send my lines:—

May 1849.

Miss Edgeworth had been staying with Mr. and Mrs. Butler in the spring. When taking leave she was unusually agitated and depressed, but said as she went away: "At Whitsuntide I shall return." On the very day before she was to redeem this promise she drove out in apparent good health, when a sudden feeling of weakness overcame her and made her return to the house. Severe pains in the region of the heart set in, and after a few hours illness Maria Edgeworth died—died as she had fondly wished, at home, in the arms of her step-mother. Yet another of her wishes was granted: she had spared her friends the anguish of seeing her suffer from protracted illness. May 22nd, 1849, she rose from the banquet of life where, in her own words, she had been a happy guest.

In her latter years Miss Edgeworth had been asked to furnish prefaces of a biographical character to her novels. She refused, saying she had nothing personal to tell. "As a woman, my life, wholly domestic,