mother, no person in the world feels so much interest in all that concerns me. I need not tell you that my father,
"Such in this moment as in all the past,"
is kindness itself—kindness far superior to what I deserve, but I am grateful for it.
A few days later she writes to her cousin:—
I take it for granted, my dear friend, that you have by this time seen a letter I wrote a few days ago to my aunt. To you, as to her, every thought of my mind is open. I persist in refusing to leave my country and friends to live at the court of Stockholm. And he tells me (of course) that there is nothing he would not sacrifice for me except his duty; he has been all his life in the service of the King of Sweden, has places under him, and is actually employed in collecting information for a large political establishment. He thinks himself bound in honour to finish what he has begun. He says he should not fear the ridicule or blame that would be thrown upon him by his countrymen for quitting his country at his age, but that he would despise himself if he abandoned his duty for any passion. This is all very reasonable, but reasonable for him only, not for me, and I have never felt anything for him but esteem and gratitude.
Mrs. Edgeworth supplements these letters in the unpublished memoir of her step-daughter, which she wrote for her family and nearest friends. She says:—
Even after her return to Edgeworthstown, it was long before Maria recovered the elasticity of her mind. She exerted all her powers of self-command, and turned her attention to everything which her father suggested for her to write. But Leonora, which she began immediately after our return home, was written with the hope of pleasing the Chevalier Edelcrantz: it was written in a style which he liked, and the idea of what he would think of it was, I believe, present to her in every page she wrote. She never heard that he had even read it. From the time they parted at Paris, there was no sort of communication between them: and beyond the chance which brought us sometimes into company with travellers who had been in Sweden, or the casual mention of M. Edelcrantz in the newspapers or scientific journals, we never heard more of one who had been of such supreme interest to her, as to us all at Paris, and of whom Maria continued to have all her life the most romantic recollection.
Miss Edgeworth's self-control was manifested at
