322 Lifj of Count Rumford. 







with able rowers they enjoyed excursions and an- 

 gling upon it, while at evening, the maid attending 

 Sarah and the Countess, they would bathe in the soft 

 waters. 



This repose was to be followed by a journey, the 

 route of which her father kept secret, that mystery 

 might add to the enjoyment " My father had ap- 

 peared to try to see how agreeable he could make him- 

 self; as if wishing to wear off by it some of the disa- 

 greeable impressions of his late conduct, in drawing so 

 many tears from my poor eyes. And he was ingenious 

 in it. He could do one way or the other. And it was 

 invariably the case, that when quiet and happy himself, 

 he was like others, or, in other words, agreeable; but 

 when perplexed with cares or business, or much occu- 

 pied, there was no living with him." 



This sharpness of a daughter's judgment of her fa- 

 ther must be regarded as lying rather in the force of 

 its expression than in any real severity of feeling. The 

 amount and variety of work performed by Count Rum- 

 ford, the multiplicity of the details which engaged his 

 attention, and the large number of agents and subordi- 

 nates whom he had to direct, as well as his almost 

 mechanical observance of order and system, might 

 naturally engross his mind in his hours of business. 

 That he was affable and genial when he had intervals 

 of leisure and repose might well relieve him from all 

 reproach for austerity at other times. Nor is it to be 

 forgotten, that, having to act in a full parental capacity 

 to a motherless and evidently somewhat volatile and 

 self-willed young woman, he might have had a judgment 

 of his own, had he chosen to express it, to offset that 

 of his daughter on himself. 



