Another gay three months followed, seeing old friends and making new ones.
We have seen Mademoiselle Mars twice, or thrice rather, in the Mariage de Figaro, and in the little pieces of Le jaloux sans amour and La jeunesse de Henri Cinq, and admire her exceedingly. En petit comité the other night at the Duchesse d'Escars, a discussion took place between the Duchesse de la Force, Marmont, and Pozzo di Borgo on the bon et maurais tou of different expressions; bonne sociétéis an expression bourgeoise. You may say bonne compagnie or la haute société. "Voilà des nuances," as Madame d'Escars said. Such a wonderful jabbering as these grandees made about these small matters. It puts me in mind of a conversation in the World on good company, which we all used to admire.
In December the travellers were back again in London, but several more visits were paid before they returned to Ireland. Thus, they halted at Clifton, to see Miss Edgeworth's sister Emmeline who was married there, and stayed at Bowood, Easton Grey, Badminton, and various other houses, in all of which they met with a warm welcome. Beloved Aunt Buxton, too, had to be seen on the way home. It was March before the sisters reached Edgeworthstown, after not quite a year's absence, a year that seemed to Miss Edgeworth like a delightful dream, full of Alps and glaciers and cascades, and Mont Blanc, and "troops of acquaintances in splendid succession and visionary confusion," a dream of which the sober certainty of happiness remained, assuring her that all that had passed had been no dream but a reality.
