by Madame Sand as a hearth's desire of hers at length fulfilled, took place in 1862, not many months after his return from half a year of travel in Africa and America in the company of Prince Napoleon. The event proved a fresh source of the purest happiness to her, and was not to separate her from her son. The young people settled at Nohant, which remained her head-quarters. There a few years later we find her residing almost exclusively, except when called by matters of business to her pied-à-terre in Paris, where she never lingered long. To the two little grand-daughters, Aurore and Gabrielle, whom she saw spring up in her home, she became passionately devoted. Most of her compositions henceforward are dated from Nohant where, indeed, more than fifty years of her life were spent.
As regards decorum of expression and temperance of sentiments, the later novels of George Sand have earned more praise than censure; but some readers may feel that in fundamental questions of taste, the comparison between them and their forerunners is not always entirely to their advantage. The fervour of youth has a certain purifying power to redeem from offence matter, even though over-frankly treated, which becomes disagreeable in cold analysis, however sober the wording and clear and admirable the moral pointed.
Mademoiselle La Quintinie, which appeared in 1863, was suggested by M. Octave Feuillet's Sibille. The
