THE PARENT'S ASSISTANT
THE
PARENT'S ASSISTANT
or, Stories for Children
BY
MARIA EDGEWORTH
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
ILLUSTRATED
BY
CHRIS HAMMOND
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1903
First printed with Illustrations by Chris Hammond 1897.
Illustrated Pocket Classics 1903.
[vii]
INTRODUCTION
Once when the present writer was a very little girl shesuffered for a short time from some inflammation of theeyes, which prevented her from reading, or amusing herselfin any way. Her father, who had just then returned fromthe East, in order to help her to pass the weary hoursbegan telling her the story of the 'Forty Thieves,' and whenhe had finished, and had boiled down the wicked thieves inoil, and when she asked him to tell it all over again, hesaid that he would try and find something else to amuseher, and looking about the room he took up a volume ofthe Parent's Assistant which was lying on the table, andbegan to read aloud the story of the 'Little Merchants.'The story lasted two mornings, and an odd, confused impressionstill remains in the listener's mind to this day ofNaples, Vesuvius, pink and white sugar plums—of adarkened room, of a lonely country house in Belgium, of asloping garden full of flowers outside the shutters, of theback of a big sofa covered with yellow velvet, and of herfather's voice reading on and on. When she visited Naplesin after days she found herself looking about unconsciouslyfor her early playfellows.
Not only Francisco and Piedro, but all those variousmembers of the Edgeworth family who play their parts in[viii]fancy names and dresses in Miss Edgeworth's stories,became her daily familiar companions from that day forth.
Many of the stories in the Parent's Assistant werewritten in a time when wars and rumours of wars were inthe air; these quiet scenes of village life were devised tothe sound of clarions. Rebels were marching and countermarching;volunteers were assembling; husbandmen, throwingaway their spades, were arming and turning intosoldiers; the French were landing in Ireland. 'I cannotbe a Captain of Dragoons,' writes Miss Edgeworth, 'andit would not make any of us one degree safer if I were sittingwith my hands before me.' So she quietly goes onwith her stories. One or two of them were written atClifton, and very early in her career an illustrated editionhad be