for stories. Edgeworthstown was crowded daily by all sorts and conditions of oddities, agents, middlemen, pipers, strollers, and professional beggars. She says—"I remember a number of literary projects, or aperçus (suggestions) of things which I might have written if I had time or capacity to do so." Then followed her father's advice—and very good advice it was—"Maria, either follow out a thing clearly to a conclusion, or do not begin it. Begin nothing without finishing it."
As the third Mrs. Edgeworth added nine children to the six that were already at Edgeworthstown there was now a large family party, and a boy, Henry, was specially given over to Maria's charge. For these children she wrote many of her early tales—the "Purple Jar," "Lazy Lawrence," and "Simple Susan," of which last story Sir Walter Scott said, "That when the boy brings back the lamb to the little girl, there is nothing for it but to sit down and cry."
Slight though these stories are, there is always a shrewd perception of character in them, together with a sense of humour which make them pleasant reading to old as well as young. Miss Edgeworth is nothing if not a moral teacher, but the moral is taught by example, not by prosy homilies. In all her early tales the virtues of industry, economy, punctuality, truthfulness,
