nostalgia. In it
she has put together the vulgar elements of inferior society in a
common-place country town, and produced a poem, though one of the
saddest. If the florist heroine, Genevieve, is a slightly idealized
figure, the story and general character-treatment are realistic to a
painful degree. There is more power of simple pathos shown here than is
common in the works of George Sand. _Andre_ is a refreshing contrast, in
its simplicity and brevity, to the inflation of _Lelia_ and _Jacques_.
It was an initial essay, and a model one, in a style with better claims
to enduring popularity.

As the summer advanced, George Sand found herself free to depart, and
started on her way back to France, famishing, as she tells us, for the
sight of her children. Her grand anxiety was to reach her destination
in time for the breaking-up day and distribution of prizes at the
College Henri IV. "I shall be at Paris before then," she writes from
Milan, to her son, "if I die on the way, and really the heat is such
that one might die of it." From Milan she journeyed over the Simplon to
the Rhone valley, Martigny, Chamounix, and Geneva, performing great part
of the way on foot. She reached Paris in the middle of August, and a few
days later started with her boy for Nohant, where Solange had spent the
time during her mother's absence, and where they remained together for
the holidays. Here too she was in the midst of a numerous circle of
friends of both sexes, in whose staunch friendliness she found a solace
of which she stood in real need.

CHAPTER V.

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

The period immediately following George Sand's return from Italy in
August 1834, was a time of transition, both in her outer and inner life.
If undistinguished by the production of any novel calculated to create a
fresh sensation, it shows no abatement of literary activity. This, as we
have seen, had become to her a necessity of nature. Neither vicissitudes
without nor commotions within, though they might direct or stimulate,
seem to have acted as a check on the flow of her pen.

During the first twelvemonth she continued to reside alternately at
Nohant, whither she came with her son and daughter for their
holidays--Solange being now placed in a children's school kept by some
English ladies at Paris,--and her "poet's garret," as she styled her
third floor _appartement_ on the Quai Malplaquet.

This winter saw the ending for herself and De Musset of their