There is one thing more we could wish changed or omitted in Flora's character. I have not the volume, and therefore cannot refer to the page; but I recollect in the first visit to Flora, when she is to sing certain verses, there is a walk, in which the description of the place is beautiful, but _too long_, and we did not like the preparation for a _scene_--the appearance of Flora and her harp was too like a common heroine, she should be far above all stage effect or novelist's trick. These are, without reserve, the only faults we found, or _can_ find in this work of genius. We should scarcely have thought them worth mentioning, except to give you proof positive that we are not flatterers. Believe me, I have not, nor can I convey to you the full idea of the pleasure, the delight we have had in reading _Waverley_, nor of the feeling of sorrow with which we came to the end of the history of persons whose real presence had so filled our minds--we felt that we must return to the _flat realities_ of life, that our stimulus was gone, and we were little disposed to read the "Postscript, which should have been a Preface." "Well, let us hear it," said my father, and Mrs. Edgeworth read on. Oh! my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my mother, my whole family, as well as myself have lost, if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly--we had been so completely absorbed that every thought of ourselves, of our own authorship, was far, far away. Thank you for the honour you have done us, [Footnote: Walter Scott, in his "Postscript," said that it had been his desire in _Waverley_ "in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth."] and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused--and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed, was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book, or knew how much we owed you.--Your obliged and grateful MARIA EDGEWORTH. _To_ MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 26, 1814._ "A merry Christmas and a happy New Year" to you, my dear Sophy, and to my aunt, and uncle, and Margaret. I have just risen from my bed, where I had been a day and a half with a violent headache and pains, or as John Langan calls them, _pins_ in my bones. We have been much entertained with _Mansfield Park._ Pray read _Eugène et Guillaume_, a modern _Gil Blas_; too much of opera intrigues, but on the whole it is a work of admirable ability. Guillaume's character beautiful, and the gradual deterioration of Eugène's character finely drawn; but the following it out becomes at last as disgusting and horrible as it would be to see the corruption of the body after the spirit had fled. _January 1815._