MRS. CLIFFORD'S, June 1813.
Saturday Evening.
Received Sneyd's letter. [Footnote: Announcing his engagement to Miss Broadhurst. It was singular that this was the name of the heroine in Miss Edgeworth's Absentee, who selected from her lovers the one who united worth and wit, in reminiscence of an epigram of Mr. Edgeworth on himself, concluding—
There's an edge to his wit and there's worth in his heart.]
Astonishment! Dear Sneyd, I hope he will be as happy as love and fortune can make him. All my ideas are thrown into such confusion by this letter that I can no more. We go to Derby on Tuesday.
To MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 26, 1813.
I have delayed a few days writing to you in the expectation of the arrival of two frankers to send an extract from Dr. Holland's last letter, which will, I hope, entertain you as much as it entertained us. I shall long to hear of our good friend Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton's visit to Black Castle.
We have every reason to be in great anxiety at this moment about a certain trunk containing all our worldly duds, and "Patronage" to boot, but still I have not been able to work myself into any fears about it, though it is a month since we ought to have seen it, nor have we heard any news of it. In the meantime, as I cannot set about revising "Patronage," I have begun a new series of Early Lessons [Footnote: The second parts of Frank, Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy.] for which many mothers told me they wished. I feel that I return with fresh pleasure to literary work from having been so long idle, and I have a famishing appetite for reading. All that we saw in London, I am sure I enjoyed while it was passing as much as possible, but I should be very sorry to live in that whirling vortex, and I find my taste and conviction confirmed on my return to my natural friends and my dear home.
I am glad that some of those who showed us hospitality and kindness in England should have come so soon to Ireland, that we may have some little opportunity of showing our sense of their attentions. Lord Carrington, who franks this, is most amiable and benevolent, without any species of pretension, thinking the best that can be thought of everything and everybody. Mr. Smith, his son, whom we had not seen in London, accompanies him, and his tutor, Mr. Kaye, a Cambridge man, and Lord Gardner, Lord Carrington's son-in-law, suffering from the gouty rheumatism, or rheumatic gout—he does not know or care which: but between the twitches of his suffering he is entertaining and agreeable.