Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/102

92 power of simple pathos shown here than is common in the works of George Sand. André is a refreshing contrast, in its simplicity and brevity, to the inflation of Lélia 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.