, strong common-sense saved her from becoming visionary,
while she was too well-read as a scholar to be caught by conceits, and
had been too sternly tried by sorrow to fall into fanciful effeminacy.
It was a pleasing surprise to see how this friend of earlier days was
acknowledged as a peer of the realm, in this new world of thought.
Men,--her superiors in years, fame and social position,--treated
her more with the frankness due from equal to equal, than the
half-condescending deference with which scholars are wont to adapt
themselves to women. They did not talk down to her standard, nor
translate their dialect into popular phrase, but trusted to her
power of interpretation. It was evident that they prized her verdict,
respected her criticism, feared her rebuke, and looked to her as an
umpire. Very observable was it, also, how, in side-talks with her,
they became confidential, seemed to glow and brighten into their best
mood, and poured out in full measure what they but scantily hinted in
the circle at large.

IV.

GENIUS.

* * * * *

It was quite a study to watch the phases through which Margaret
passed, in one of these assemblies. There was something in the air
and step with which she chose her place in the company, betokening
an instinctive sense, that, in intellect, she was of blood royal and
needed to ask no favors. And then she slowly gathered her attention
to take in the significance of the scene. Near-sighted and habitually
using an eye-glass, she rapidly scanned the forms and faces, pausing
intently where the expression of particular heads or groups suggested
thought, and ending her survey with some apt home-thrust to her next
neighbors, as if to establish full _rapport_, and so to become a
medium for the circulating life. Only when thus in magnetic relations
with all present, by a clear impress of their state and place, did
she seem prepared to rise to a higher stage of communion. Then she
listened, with ear finely vibrating to every tone, with all
capacities responsive in sympathy, with a swift and ductile power of
appreciation, that made her feel to the quick the varying moods of
different speakers, and yet the while with coolest self-possession.
Now and then a slight smile, flickering over her countenance, as
lightning plays on the surface of a cloud, marked the inward process
whereby she was harmonizing in equilibrium opposing thoughts. And,
as occasion offered,