hank you, for liking the two Clays. But pray
don't envelop _all_ the country gentlemen of England in English
Clay.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, says my father, for liking Lady
Jane Grandville. Her ladyship is his favorite, but nobody has ever
mentioned her in their letters but you. I cannot believe that you
ever resembled that selfish, hollow Lady Angelica. Would you ever
have guessed that the character of Rosamond is like--M. E.? All who
know me intimately say it is as like as 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 ever
composed.... The admirable characters of King Corny and Sir Ulick
O'Shane, and all the wonderful scenes full of wit, humor and
feeling, were written in agony of anxiety, with trembling hand and
tearful eyes. As she finished chapter after chapter, she read them
out, the whole family assembling in their father's room to listen
to them. Her father enjoyed these readings so exceedingly as to
reward her for the wonderful efforts she made.

Enfeebled as he was by illness, and often while enduring pain, Mr.
Edgeworth nevertheless continued as before to revise his daughter's
manuscript with "an acuteness, a perseverance of attention of which I
cannot bear to think," she writes in after years. "He would work at it
in his bed for hours together, once at an end for six hours, d