from the North and the South and the West; of Scott and Lockhart, of
Pictet, of the Ticknors, of the many visitants who had come up in turn;
whether it is the year 14, or the year 94, the hospitable doors open
kindly to admit them. There were the French windows reaching to the
ground, through which Maria used to pass on her way to gather her roses;
there was the porch where Walter Scott had stood; there grew the quaint
old-fashioned bushes with the great pink peonies in flower, by those
railings which still divide the park from the meadows beyond; there
spread the branches of the century-old trees. Only last winter they told
us the storms came and swept away a grove of Beeches that were known in
all the country round, but how much of shade, of flower, still remain!
The noble Hawthorn of stately growth, the pine-trees (there should be
NAMES for trees, as there are for rocks or ancient strongholds). Mr.
Edgeworth showed us the oak from Jerusalem, the grove of cypress and
sycamore where the beautiful depths of ground ivy are floating upon the
DEBRIS, and soften the gnarled roots, while they flood the rising banks
with green.

Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth brought us into the house. The ways go upstairs
and downstairs, by winding passages and side gates; a pretty domed
staircase starts from the central hall, where stands that old clock-case
which Maria wound up when she was over eighty years old. To the right
and to the left along the passages were rooms opening from one into
another. I could imagine Sir Walter's kind eyes looking upon the scene,
and Wordsworth coming down the stairs, and their friendly entertainer
making all happy, and all welcome in turn; and their hostess, the
widowed Mrs. Edgeworth, responding and sympathising with each. We saw
the corner by the fire where Maria wrote; we saw her table with
its pretty curves standing in its place in the deep casements. Miss
Edgeworth's own room is a tiny little room above looking out on the back