almost before it was true, she tells her step-mother that she is off the invalid list. Scott was anxious to have her at Abbotsford, and promised to nurse her carefully. At the end of July she and her sisters yielded to his friendly entreaties, and spent a fortnight with him in his home. Lockhart speaks of the time of her visit as one of the happiest in Scott's life. Until the Miss Edgeworths arrived the season had been wet. It was a great joy to Sir Walter that with her appearance summer appeared too. On his expressing this, Miss Sophy Edgeworth mentioned the Irish tune "You've brought the summer with you," and repeated the first line of the words Moore had adapted to it. "How pretty!" said Sir Walter; "Moore's the man for songs. Campbell can write an ode and I can write a ballad, but Moore beats us all at a song."
Miss Edgeworth was charmed with Scott and his home, with the excursions he took them, with the drives she had with him in his little carriage, during which the flow of his anecdotes, wit, and wisdom, never ceased. His joyous manner and life of mind, his looks of fond pride in his children, the pleasantness of his easy manners, his keen sense of humour, enchanted her. She also liked Lady Scott, a liking that was returned. Miss Edgeworth considered her
A most kind-hearted, hospitable person, who had much more sense and more knowledge of character and discrimination than many of those who ridiculed her. I know I never can forget her kindness to me when I was ill at Abbotsford. Her last words at parting were, "God bless you ! we shall never meet again." At that time it was much more likely that I should have died, I thought, than she.
This was not Miss Edgeworth's first visit to Edinburgh, and Lady Scott expressed her surprise that Sir Walter and she had not met earlier. " Why," said Sir
