’Instead of delaying his marriage, which some would have advised, my father urged for an immediate day.  On the 31st of May he was married to Miss Beaufort, by her brother, the Rev. William Beaufort, at St. Anne’s Church in Dublin.  They came down to Edgeworth Town immediately, through a part of the country that was in actual insurrection.  Late in the evening they arrived safe at home, and my father presented his bride to his expecting, anxious family.

’Of her first entrance and appearance that evening I can recollect only the general impression, that it was quite natural, without effort or pretension.  The chief thing remarkable was, that she, of whom we were all thinking so much, seemed to think so little of herself. . . .

’The sisters of the late Mrs. Edgeworth, those excellent aunts (Mrs. Mary and Charlotte Sneyd), instead of returning to their English friends and relations, remained at Edgeworth Town.  This was an auspicious omen to the common people in our neighbourhood, by whom they were universally beloved—­it spoke well, they said, for the new lady.  In his own family, the union and happiness she would secure were soon felt, but her superior qualities, her accurate knowledge, judgment, and abilities, in decision and in action, appeared only as occasions arose and called for them.  She was found always equal to the occasion, and superior to the expectation.’

Maria had not at first been in favour of her father’s marrying Miss Beaufort, but she soon changed her opinion after becoming intimate with her, and writing of her father’s choice of a wife says:  ’He did not late in life marry merely to please his own fancy, but he chose a companion suited to himself, and a mother fit for his family.  This, of all the blessings we owe to him, has proved the greatest.’

The family at Edgeworth Town passed the summer quietly and happily, but (Maria continues) ’towards the autumn of the year 1798, this country became in such a state that the necessity of resorting to the sword seemed imminent.  Even in the county of Longford, which had so long remained quiet, alarming symptoms appeared, not immediately in our neighbourhood, but within six or seven miles of us, near Granard.  The people were leagued in secret rebellion, and waited only for the expected arrival of the French army to break ’out.  In the adjacent counties military law had been proclaimed, and our village was within a mile of the bounds of the disturbed county of Westmeath.  Though his own tenantry, and all in whom he put trust, were as quiet, and, as far as he could judge, as well-disposed as ever, yet my father was aware, from information of too good authority to be doubted, that there were disaffected persons in the vicinity.

’Numbers held themselves in abeyance, not so much from disloyalty, as from fear that they should be ultimately the conquered party.  Those who were really and actually engaged, and in communication with the rebels and with the foreign enemy, were so secret and cunning that no proofs could be obtained against them.