'As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs.
Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature
had given, she pointed out to my lord "a happy moving termination,"
consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails.
On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the
water. The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard
Mrs. Raffarty bawling to his lordship to beg he would never mind, and
not trouble himself.
'When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part
of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they
attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure which
had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of
the bait.'
The dinner-party is too long to quote, but it is written in Miss
Edgeworth's most racy and delightful vein of fun.
One more little fact should not be omitted in any mention of THE
ABSENTEE. One of the heroines is Miss Broadhurst, the heiress. The
Edgeworth family were much interested, soon after the book appeared, to
hear that a real living Miss Broadhurst, an heiress, had appeared upon
the scenes, and was, moreover, engaged to be married to Sneyd Edgeworth,
one of the eldest sons of the family.
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