But from the time of Cardinal Chigi and his one stump of a twenty-years-old pen on which he piqued himself, I quite agree with Cardinal Mazarin[11] that these petty singularities are proofs of a little mind, instead of an originality of genius.
And now, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, "Bisogna levar l'incommodità"—to use the parting phrase of a vulgar Italian who feels that she has made an unconscionable visit: or, as the cockney would say as she got up to depart from a morning visitation, "Time for me to be going, I think." And if you do not think so, or have not thought so ten pages ago, you are more indulgent and fonder of me than I had any right or reason to expect, even after all I have heard from and seen of you.
I promise you that you shall not be so tried again for a twelvemonth to come, at the least. Give my kind remembrances to your eldest daughter, who so kindly remembers me, and give a kiss for me to your youngest, that dear little plaything who cannot remember me, but whom I shall never forget; nor her father's fond look at her, when the tear was forgotten as soon as shed.
Ever affectionately, dear Mrs. Ticknor,
Your obliged friend,
Maria Edgeworth.
Turn over, and as the children's fairy-boards say, "you shall see what you shall see."
N. B.—Among the various scratchifications and scarifications in this volume, you may remark that there have been reiterated scratches at Mrs. and Miss Wilmot, and attempts alternately to turn the lady into Mrs. and Miss.
Be it now declared and understood that the lady is not either Mrs. or Miss Wilmot, but Mrs. Bradford—born Wilmot, daughter of a Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot of Cork—went over to Russia to better herself at the invitation of the Princess Dashkoff, who had, in a visit to Ireland, become acquainted with some of her family. What motives induced her to go to Russia, except the general notion of bettering her fortune, I cannot tell. But she did better her fortune, for the princess gave her pearls in strings, and diamonds in necklaces and rings, and five thousand solid pounds in her pocket, for all which she had like to have been poisoned before she could clear away with them out of Russia.
When she came back she married, or was married to, Mr. Bradford, a clergyman, and now lives in Sussex, England.