that; he need only _pronounce_. _Il sait qu'il se suffit._ And,"
added Talma, who told this to Sir Humphrey, "Bonaparte, as he said
this, folded his arms in his well-known manner, and stood as if his
attitude expressed the sentiment."

A little later another sister was taken from the family circle by
marriage; this time it was Miss Edgeworth's travelling companion and
friend Harriet, who married Mr. Butler, a clergyman. The home party was
thinning, and Miss Edgeworth, who liked to have a large number of her
loved ones about her, felt this keenly. But happily young nephews and
nieces were springing up to take the places of those who were gone, and
fill the house with that sunshine of child-life and child-laughter that
had seldom been absent from its walls.

She wrote to her brother about a little nephew:--

How you will like that child and make it see "upper air!" How long
since those times when you used to show its mother and Harriet
upper air! Do you remember how you used to do it to frighten me,
and how I used to shut my eyes when you threw them up, and how you
used to call me to look? _Ah! le bon temps!_ But we are all very
happy now, and it is delightful to hear a child's voice cooing or
even crying again in this house.

She was devoted to children, and never happier than when surrounded by
them. They in their turn loved the kind little old lady--for she was
getting an old lady now--who played with them so merrily, who entered
into all their fun, who told them such pretty stories, who plied them
with pennies and all manner of good and pretty things. She never lost
the power of speaking their language; her letters to children are among
some of the most genial she wrote. She was pleased and gratified when
the little ones liked her or her stories.

Visits to Mrs. Ruxton at Black Castle, to married brothers and sisters,
or to friends, formed more and more frequent interludes in her
home-life; but each time she returns, Miss Edgeworth records her
excessive happiness to find herself at Edgeworthstown again, with her
beloved stepmother and those who still were left.

After one such visit to Mrs. Ruxton, she writes to her:--

After spending four months with you, it is most delightful to me to
receive from you such assurances that I have been a pleasure and a
comfort to you. I often think of William's most just and
characteristic expression, that yo