This morning was everything that was exquisite, and I have since breakfast had the gardener and heaps of workmen, and have been sawing beech-branches, to my great satisfaction and the approval of others; and in criticism I have found all agree with me, for _Helen_ is begun, and at eleven we meet in the library; and Harriet has read aloud four chapters. It is altogether in Maria's best style; and I think the public will like it as hers, the return to an old friend.

_31st_.

I am sure you would like the cheerful fusion of this home party: each star is worthy of separate observation for its serenity, brilliancy, or magnitude; but it is as a constellation they claim most regard, linked together by strong attachment, and moving in harmony through their useful course. The herons sail about and multiply, the rookery is banished, the reign of tulips now almost o'er, and peonies of many bells are taking their place.

I am a stranger to any book but _Helen_, scarcely looking at the newspaper, which Mr. Butler devours. Harriet has gone in the pony-carriage for Molly, and she is to be driven by Francis's walk and Maria's garden.

_June 1_.

Aunt Mary's [Footnote: Mrs. Mary Sneyd.] interest in _Helen_ is delightful. Never did the whole family appear to more advantage; the accordance of opinion, yet cheerfulness of discussion, is charming.

When the evening reading of _Helen_ was finished, Harriet and I walked round the lawn; the owls shrieking and flitting by in pursuit of bats: clouds in endless varieties in the unsettled heavens. The library, as we looked in at it through the windows, with all its walls and pictures lighted up by the lamps, looked beautiful. I thought how my father would have been touched to look in as we did on his assembled family.

MARIA _to_ M. PAKENHAM EDGEWORTH, ESQ.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

_Valentine's Day, 1834_.

The herons this day (according to their custom as Sophy tells me) sat all in a row in the horse park in solemn deliberation upon their own affairs: the opening of their budget I suppose. They have much upon their hands this session, and there must be a battle soon, on which the fate of the empire must depend; magpies and scarecrows abound, and such clouds of starlings darkened the air for many minutes opposite the library window, settling at last upon the three great beech trees, that Sophy and I would have given a crown imperial you had been by, dear Pakenham, to see them.