Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 45

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To MRS. O'BEIRNE.[1]

BLACK CASTLE, July 6, 1824.

In the little drawing-room at Black Castle, where we have been so often happy together; in the little drawing-room to which you have so often brought me to see my dear aunt, I now write to you, my dear friend, to tell you how much I miss you. I feel a perpetual want of that part of my happiness in this dear place which I owed to its neighbourhood to another dear place to which I cannot now bear to go. Once, and but once, in the two months I have been here have I been there; when the indispensable civility of returning a formal visit required it, and then I felt it to be as much, if not more, than I was able to do, with the composure I felt to be proper. The sitting in that red drawing-room and missing everything I had so loved—the saloon, the lawn—I really could not speak, and heartily glad I was when I got away.

My plans of going to England this summer have been all broken up: you know how, as you have heard of the death of my dear sister Anna, [2] at Florence; the account of her loss reached me just when I was joyfully expecting an answer to a letter full of projects which she never lived to read. GOD'S will be done. We expect my nieces, Anna and Mary, at Edgeworthstown as soon as they return from Italy.


Footnotes

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  1. The Bishop of Meath died in 1823; and Mrs. O'Beirne and her daughters went to reside in England.
  2. Anna Edgeworth, Maria's whole sister, had married Dr. Beddoes in 1794.