severed the Gordian knot of the family difficulties. Introduced by a
stratagem into her grandmother's presence, and seated in her lap as the
child of a stranger, the family traits were suddenly recognized, and the
little one (eight months old) effected a change of heart which neither
lawyer nor priest could have induced. St. Childhood is fortunately
always in the world, working ever these miracles of reconciliation.

George speaks with admirable candor of the inevitable relations between
these two women. She does full justice to the legitimacy of the
grandmother's objections to the marriage, and her fears for its result,
which were founded much more on moral than on social considerations. At
the same time she nobly asserts her mother's claim to rehabilitation
through a passionate and disinterested attachment, a faithful devotion
to the duties of marriage and maternity, and a widowhood whose sorrow
ended only with her life. She says,--"The doctrine of redemption is the
symbol of the principle of expiation and of rehabilitation"; but she
adds,--"Our society recognizes this principle in religious theory,
but not in practice; it is too great, too beautiful for us." She says
farther,--"There still exists a pretended aristocracy of virtue, which,
proud of its privileges, does not admit that the errors of youth are
susceptible of atonement. This condemnation is the more absurd, because,
for what is called the World, it is hypocritical. It is not only women
of really irreproachable life, nor matrons truly respected, who are
called upon to decide upon the merits of their misled sisters. It is not
the company of the excellent of the earth who make opinion. That is all
a dream. The great majority of women of the world is really a majority
of _lost women_." We must understand these remarks as applying to French
society, in respect even of which we are not inclined to admit their
truth. Yet there is a certain justice in the inference that women
are often most severely condemned by those who are no better than