their houses as pretty [sic; it is not quite grammar, but it is
better than if it were;] as care, trouble, and refinement can make
them.

It is the degree BEYOND that which to us has proved so fatal, and
that I would our example could warn you from as a small repayment
for your hospitality and friendliness to us in our days of trouble.

May Englishwomen accept this in a kindly spirit as a New-year's wish
from

A FRENCH LADY. Dec. 29.


That, then, is the substance of what I would fain say convincingly,
if it might be, to my girl friends; at all events with certainty in
my own mind that I was thus far a safe guide to them.

For other and older readers it is needful I should write a few words
more, respecting what opportunity I have had to judge, or right I
have to speak, of such things; for, indeed, too much of what I have
said about women has been said in faith only. A wise and lovely
English lady told me, when 'Sesame and Lilies' first appeared, that
she was sure the 'Sesame' would be useful, but that in the 'Lilies'
I had been writing of what I knew nothing about. Which was in a
measure too true, and also that it is more partial than my writings
are usually: for as Ellesmere spoke his speech on the--
intervention, not, indeed, otherwise than he felt, but yet
altogether for the sake of Gretchen, so I wrote the 'Lilies' to
please one girl; and were it not for what I remember of her, and of