The subtle skill with which some of the nobler qualities of her women are brought out, especially their capacity for self-sacrifice and devotion, marks Mrs. Praed's highest point of achievement in the portrayal of character. Her knowledge of the mental complexities of her own sex is both deeper and better expressed than her observation of men. In the most inconsistent, the most cynical, or the shallowest of her women, there is a latent tenderness, a soft womanliness, which conquers dislike. Thus, it is impossible to lack sympathy for Christina Chard, or accept her own estimate of her selfishness, after reading the finely-written scene in which she is found kneeling by the bedside of her dying child, from whom she has been so cruelly separated, while her recreant husband stands apart in awe and humiliation; or, again, in the interview with Frederica Barnadine, when the claims of both women to the love of Rolf Luard are discussed. The absence of similar redeeming qualities in several of the principal male characters leaves them almost wholly without definite claim on our regard, and also lessens the effect of the author's frequent endeavours to impartially contrast the unconsciously low moral standard of the average worldly man--the standard which society accepts--with the high, impracticable ideals of inexperienced womanhood. The heroines in nearly all of Mrs. Praed's stories have the life of sentiment and passion revealed to them by men older in years, and skilled in those small arts and graces of refined society which are ever attractive to women. But, in fulfilling this design, the men themselves are often placed in a strained and artificial pose. The presentation of the purely emotional side of their nature inevitably tends to produce an appearance of weakness and effeminacy. There is hardly a single admirable quality in Barrington, the base lover of Honoria Longleat; or in George Brand, who deserts Esther Hagart in her poverty and loneliness, and years afterwards, on finding her recognised as the niece of an English baronet, persuades her into an unhappy marriage; or in Brian Gilmore, the profligate in _Moloch_, who seeks to rejuvenate his jaded passions with the love of an innocent girl, after abandoning another woman whose life he has spoiled. Sir Bruce Carr-Gambier forsakes Christina Chard and her child for cowardly reasons similar to those pleaded by Brand. When they meet, long-after, he offers his devotion again, but only because her developed beauty, position, and reputed wealth attract him.