< Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu
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148

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

songer si vos colonies —' 'Faut il avoir le sucre de bettetrave en France?' 'Mais, Sire, il faut examiner —' 'Bah! je le demanderai à Berthollet.' This despotic, laconic mode of insisting on learning everything in two words had its inconveniences. One day he asked the master of the woods at Fontainebleau, "How many acres of wood here?" The master, an honest man, stopped to recollect. "Bah!" and the under-master came forward and said any number that came into his head. Bonaparte immediately took the mastership from the first and gave it to the second. "Qu'arrivait il?" continued Prony; "the rogue who gave the guess answer was soon found cutting down and selling quantities of the tries, and Bonaparte had to take the rangership from him and reinstate the honest hesitator."

Many of her good stories had to be cut short or omitted for lack of time to tell them. "I find always that when I come to the end of my paper, I have not told you half the entertaining things I had treasured up for you," she tells her step-mother. As in London, they lived in a constant whirl of gaiety. But Miss Edgeworth never forgot others amid the distinctions paid to herself. She was constantly thinking either what would please those left behind, or what kind act she could do for those around her; and if it were nothing more than helping other English visitors to gain a glimpse of French Society, she set herself with all ardour to accomplish it.

Next to the delight of seeing my sisters so justly appreciated and so happy at Paris, my greatest pleasure has been in the power of introducing people to each other, who longed to meet, but could not contrive it before.

Social success did not turn her head.

Certainly no people can have seen more of the world than we have done in the last three months. By seeing the world, I mean seeing varieties of characters and manners, and being behind the scones of life in many different societies and families. The constant chorus of our Moral as we drive home together at night is, " How happy we are to be so fond of each other. How happy we are to be independent of all we see here! How happy that we have our dear home to return to at last!"
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