pleasure and have had more amusement, infinitely more than I
expected, and received more attention, more kindness, than I could
have thought it possible would be shown to me; I have enjoyed the
delight of seeing my father esteemed and honored by the best judges
in England; I have felt the pleasure of seeing my true friend and
mother--for she has been a mother to me--appreciated in the best
society; and now, with the fullness of content, I return home,
loving my own friends and my own mode of life preferably to all
others, after comparison with all that is fine and gay, and rich
and rare.

* * * * *

I feel that I return with fresh pleasure to literary work from
having been so long idle, and I have a famishing appetite for
reading. All that we saw in London I am sure I enjoyed, while it
was passing, as much as possible; but I should be sorry to live in
that whirling vortex, and I find my taste and conviction confirmed
on my return to my natural friends and my dear home.

Seeing _Patronage_ through the press, and writing the continuations of
_Frank_, _Rosamond_, and _Harry and Lucy_, were Miss Edgeworth's
immediate occupations on her return.

Early in 1814 Mr. Edgeworth showed the first infirmities of age, which
resulted in a long and painful illness. During its course Miss
Edgeworth's letters were only bulletins of his health. The anxiety the
family had so long felt concerning Lovell Edgeworth, on whom, on Mr.
Edgeworth's death, all his duties would devolve, and who was still a
prisoner, was heightened by this event. It was, therefore, an increased
joy when, upon the entrance of the Allies into Paris, after a forcible
detention of eleven years, Lovell Edgeworth was at last released and
able to hasten home. The pleasure of seeing him helped to restore his
father's health; but it was evident that Mr. Edgeworth's constitution
had received a shock, and he himself never swerved from the opinion that
his existence might be prolonged a year, or even two, but that permanent
recovery was out of all question. This did not depress him. As before,
he continued to be actively employed, interested in all new things, in
all the life about him, and repeatedly exclaimed, "How I enjoy my
existence!" "He did not for his own sake desire length of life," says
his daughter, "but it was his prayer that his mind might not decay