Edgeworths.

After a week's stay Sir Walter and his friends departed to visit
Killarney; and Miss Edgeworth, her sister Harriet and brother William
were easily persuaded to be of the party. The journey was a delightful
one to all concerned; and though a few little mishaps occurred, such as
the difficulties of finding post-horses to convey so large a party,
everything was turned to enjoyment. Sir Walter and Miss Edgeworth shared
this faculty of looking on the bright side of the necessary discomforts
of a journey, and extracting amusement from every incident--a faculty
for want of which so many travellers fail to enjoy themselves. They
charmed all with whom they came in contact, down to the very boatman who
rowed them on the lake of Killarney, and who, rowing Lord Macaulay
twenty years afterwards, told him that the circumstance had made him
amends for missing a hanging that day! On Sir Walter Scott's birthday a
large gathering of the clans Edgeworth and Scott took place at Dublin.
"Sir Walter's health was drunk with more feeling than gaiety," and on
that same evening he and Miss Edgeworth parted, never to meet again.

CHAPTER XIII.

1826 TO 1834.

It was in 1825 that the second part of _Harry and Lucy_ was published,
completing the labors planned for Miss Edgeworth by her father. The good
reception it met with caused her to contemplate writing some more short
tales, but she missed the guiding friend that had so long directed her.
A story called _Taken for Granted_ had long been on the stocks. Though
never finished, she was occupied with it for some time, and began to see
clearly where her difficulties lay.

Your observations about the difficulties of _Taken for Granted_ are
excellent; I "take for granted" I shall be able to conquer them. If
only one instance were taken, the whole story must turn upon that,
and be constructed to bear on one point; and that pointing to the
moral would not appear natural. As Sir Walter said to me in reply
to my observing, "It is difficult to introduce the moral without
displeasing the reader": "The rats won't go into the trap if they
smell the hand of the rat-catcher."

The opening of the year 1826 was one of general financial depression.
This was, of course, felt yet more acutely in Ireland, where money
affairs are never too flourishing. Even the estate of Edgeworthstown,
that had as yet safely weathered all storms, was affected, and it