nre_ pictures; but
unlike most works of that class (on canvas at least), they are not mere
representations of pretty faces and pretty clothes. She works with a
real knowledge of the human heart, and her work is full of feeling. She
does nothing in the grand style; even her most loving women do not have
grand passions; but all her work is truthful and warm with real life,
and her earnest people are really in earnest. The story of "A Point of
Honor" is interesting, although its incidents are not all out of the
common way. Gifford Mohun, the handsome young heir of Yatton, an estate
in Devonshire, loves, when he is only twenty, one Jane Grand, a
beautiful and sweet-natured girl who is only a year younger than
himself. Nothing is known of her history. She herself does not know her
own parentage. All this has been concealed from her at her father's
request, and with some reason; for it comes out that she is the daughter
of a felon, who died in the hulks, by a minor French actress, a
modification of whose name, Grandet, she bears. When she knows this, she
refuses to taint Mohun's name and life with such dishonor, and he
accepts her decision; doing so with two implications on the part of the
authoress: first, that he was selfish in doing so at all; next, that
doing it he did it coldly and with a false affectation of feeling. He
leaves Yatton and its neighborhood, and plunges into dissipation. Jane
remains at Chesterford, leading her solitary life and loving him.
Meantime the vicar, Mr. Follett, a man of strong nature, much
tenderness, and great tact, whose character is admirably drawn, loves
Jane, and quietly bides his time. After ten years, however, Mohun
returns, walks into Jane's parlor, and asks her to be friends with him.
She, loving him no less than ever, assents gladly, and thereafter he is
almost domesticated in her cottage. He has become somewhat gross in
manner and in speech, as well as in person; but Jane loves him, and
watches for his coming, day by day, as when she was a girl. This goes on
for some months, with a slight admixture of the curate, when all at once
a new personage appears upon the scene. Mohun receives a letter, which
he shows to Jane, and asks her advice about. It is from a Matty
Fergusson, whom he remembers as the untidy little daughter of some
disreputable people he knew something of at a German watering place. She
tells a sad tale of destitution, and asks him to recommend her to some
of his friends