we are to be so fond of each other! How happy we are to be so independent of all we see here! How happy that we have our own dear home to return to.'"
Moore, who met Miss Edgeworth at Bowood, the Marquis of Lansdowne's, says "Miss Edgeworth is delightful, not from display, but from repose and unaffectedness, the least pretending person of the company."
Byron thought her a "nice unassuming Jeanie Deans-looking body—as we Scotch say, and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself; one would never have guessed she could write her name."
Between Maria Edgeworth and Sir Walter Scott there was something more than friendship. He acknowledged in the Preface to Waverley that "without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, the pathetic tenderness and admirable tact which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland."
A visit to Abbotsford in 1823 was a memorable event in Maria Edgeworth's life. Sir Walter had to show her Thomas the Rhymer's glen, the magic scenes of Yarrow and fair Melrose. There was a picnic by St. Mary's Loch, and a return to
