My mother has had a sore throat, and Aunt Charlotte and Honora have had feverish attacks, and John Jenkins has had fever, so that my father was obliged to remove him to his own house in the village. There has been and is a fever in the lanes of Edgeworthstown, and so quickly does ill news fly, that this got before us to Collon, to the Speaker's, where we were invited, and had actually set out last week to spend a few days there. When we got to Allenstown, we were told that a servant from the Speaker's had arrived with a letter, and had gone on to Edgeworthstown with it: we waited for his return with the letter, which was to forbid our going to Collon, as Mrs. Foster, widow of the Bishop, was there with her daughters, and was afraid of our bringing infection! We performed quarantine very pleasantly for a week at Allenstown. Mrs. Waller's inexhaustible fund of kindness and generosity is like Aboulcasin's treasure, it is not only inexhaustible, but take what you will from it it cannot be perceptibly diminished. Harriet Beaufort [Footnote: Sister of Mrs. Edgeworth.] is indeed a charming excellent girl; I love and esteem her more and more as I know her better: she has been at different times between three and four months in the house with us, and I have had full opportunities of seeing down to the kitchen, and up to the garret of her mind. You are so near Johnson, [Footnote: The bookseller.] that you must of course know more of Maria's sublime works than Maria knows of them herself; and besides Lovell, who thinks of them ten times more than Johnson, has not let you rest in ignorance. An octavo edition of _Practical Education_ is to come out at Christmas: we have seen a volume, which looks as well as can be expected. The two first parts of _Early Lessons_, containing Harry and Lucy, two wee, wee volumes, have just come over to us. Frank and Rosamond will, I suppose, come after with all convenient speed. How _Moral Tales_ are arranged, or in what size they are to appear, I do not know, but I guess they will soon be published, because some weeks ago we received four engravings for frontispieces; they are beautifully engraved by Neagle, and do justice to the designs, two of which are by my mother, and two by Charlotte. I hope you will like them. There are three stories which will be new to you, "The Knapsack," "The Prussian Vase," and "Angelina." Now, my dear friend, you cannot say that I do not tell you what I am doing. My father is employed making out Charts of History and Chronology, such as are mentioned in _Practical Education._ He has just finished a little volume containing Explanations of Poetry for children: it explains "The Elegy in a Country Churchyard," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and "The Ode to Fear." It will be a very useful schoolbook. It goes over to-night to Johnson, but how long it will remain with him before you see it in print I cannot divine. * * * * * Mrs. Edgeworth narrates: