So leaving Mrs. Edgeworth and her little girls with her mother, he made
his escape to France, only taking with him his boy, whom he determined
to educate according to the system of Rousseau. Then, for two years, he
remained at Lyons, employing his inventive and mechanical powers in
building bridges.

Meantime, the early childhood of Maria Edgeworth, who was born, 1st
January 1767, in the house of her grandfather, Mr. Elers, at Black
Bourton, was spent almost entirely with relations in Oxfordshire, or
with her maternal great-aunts, the Misses Blake, in Great Russell Street
in London. It was in their house that her neglected and unloved
mother--always a kind and excellent, though a very sad woman--died after
her confinement of a third daughter (Anna) in 1773. On hearing of what
he considered to be his release, Mr. Edgeworth hurried back at once to
England, and, before four months were over, he was married to Miss
Honora Sneyd, whose assent to so hasty a marriage would scarcely prepare
those who were unacquainted with her for the noble, simple, and faithful
way in which she ever fulfilled the duties of a wife and stepmother. The
son of the first marriage, Richard Edgeworth, went, by his own choice,
to sea, but the three little girls, Maria, Emmeline, and Anna, returned
with their father and stepmother to Edgeworthstown, where they had a
childhood of unclouded happiness.

In 1775 Maria Edgeworth, being then eight years old, was sent to a
school at Derby, kept by Mrs. Lataffiere, to whom she always felt much
indebted, though her stepmother, then in very failing health, continued
to take part in her education by letter.


MRS. HONORA EDGEWORTH _to_ MARIA.