plated the idea, in case of the decision going against her, of escaping with them to America! Yet in the midst of all this suspense, we find her industrious as ever, joining in the day-time in the family life of the household with which she was domesticated, helping to amuse the children among them, retiring to her room at ten at night, to work on at her desk till seven in the morning according to her wont. A more cheerful tone begins to pervade her effusions. The clouds were slowly breaking on all sides at once, and a variety of circumstances combining to restore to her mind its natural tone—faith, hope, and charity to her heart, and harmony to her existence. She began to perceive what she was enabled afterwards more fully to acknowledge as follows:—
As to my religion, the ground of it has never varied. The forms of the past have vanished, for me as for my century, before the light of study and reflection. But the eternal doctrine of believers, of God and His goodness, the immortal soul and the hopes of another life, this is what, in myself, has been proof against all examination, all discussion, and even intervals of despairing doubt."
It is significant that during these months, spent for the most part at La Châtre, we find her rewriting Lélia, trying, as she expressed her intention, "to transform this work of anger into a work of gentleness." Engelwald, a novel of some length on which she was engaged, was destined never to see the light.
To the Comtesse d'Agoult, better known by her nom
