exclaimed he, taking my hand and kissing it, adding an eulogium on the Quakers. I told him it would be well if they were all of our way of thinking, for then there would be no such work as the present."
Relief came when the 9th Dragoon s appeared galloping along the high road from Carlow. Mary Leadbeater says:—"We saw the military descend the hill, cross the bridge, and halt before our house, when some dismounted, and entered asking for milk and water. As I handed it, I trembled. The dragoon perceived my emotion, and kindly told me I was not to fear, that they came to protect us, adding, 'It is well you were not all murdered.'"
It was long before the village recovered from this wave of disaster.
Mary Leadbeater was more successful with her prose than her poetry. Her "Cottage Dialogues," for which a London publisher gave her £50, is a very useful little book. Her two women, Rose and Nancy, talk together as Irish peasants do talk; Nancy is the careless, idle one, and Rose the industrious, frugal housewife. The "Dialogues" had one practical effect, Miss Edgeworth told the author, in making a dirty family of cottagers fill up the holes in their floors. A great compliment was paid to the book by a Connaughtman named Thady Connellan, who proposed translating it into Irish.
