that Mrs. Edgeworth was ill at home. Both invalids, however, happily recovered, yet Miss Edgeworth was to find an empty chair on her return; her aunt, Mary Sneyd, had been taken away, at the advanced age of ninety. As often before, she felt the sorrow keenly, but rallied bravely from its effects for the sake of those who were left, and who depended on her yet more.
During the summer of 1842, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall visited Ireland. They spent some days at Edgeworthstown, with the avowed purpose of writing of its occupants, and we have from their pen also a pleasant picture of the family home-life.
"The library at Edgeworthstown" [say the writers] "is by no means the reserved and solitary room that libraries are in general. It is large and spacious and lofty; well stored with books, and embellished with those most valuable of all classes of prints—the suggestive; it is also picturesque, having been added to so as to increase its breadth; the addition is supported by square pillars, and the beautiful lawn seen through the windows, embellished and varied by clumps of trees judiciously planted, imparts much cheerfulness to the exterior. An oblong table in the centre is a sort of rallying-point for the family, who group around it—reading, writing, or working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious upon one point—that all in the house should do exactly as they like, without reference to her—sits quietly and abstractedly in her own peculiar corner on the sofa, her desk—upon which lies Sir Walter Scott's pen, given to her by him when in Ireland—placed before her upon a little quaint table, as unassuming as possible. Miss Edgeworth's abstractedness would puzzle the philosophers: in that same corner, and upon that table, she has written nearly
