brilliancy which is often mere flippancy. Nor does she seek to attract homage and admiration. On the contrary, she is very averse to speak of herself, or even to hear the heartfelt praise of others. She does not engross the conversation, but is more eager to listen than to talk. She has that delicate tact--which is one of the fine arts among women--to make others talk, suggesting topics the most rich and fruitful, and by a word drawing the conversation into a channel where it may flow with broad, free current. Thus she makes you forget the celebrated author, and think only of the refined and highly cultivated woman. You do not feel awed by her genius, but only quickened by it, as something that calls out all that is better and truer. While there is no attempt to impress you with her intellectual superiority, you naturally feel elevated into a higher sphere. The conversation of itself floats upward into a region above the commonplace. The small-talk of ordinary society would seem an impertinence. There is a singular earnestness about her, as if those mild eyes looked deep into the great, sad, awful truths of existence. To her, life is a serious reality, and the gift of genius a grave responsibility." Mrs. Lewes was in the habit for many years of receiving her friends on Sunday afternoons from two to six o'clock. These gatherings came to be among the most memorable features of London literary life. A large number of persons, both men and women, attended her receptions, and among them many who were well known to the scientific or literary world. Especially were young men of aspiring minds drawn hither and given a larger comprehension of life. She had no political or fashionable connections, says Mr. F.W.H. Myers, "but nearly all who were most eminent in art, science, literature, philanthropy, might be met from time to time at her Sunday-afternoon receptions. There were many women, too, drawn often from among very different traditions of thought and belief, by the unfeigned goodness which they recognized in Mrs. Lewes's look and speech, and sometimes illumining with some fair young face a _salon_ whose grave talk needed the grace which they could bestow. And there was sure to be a considerable admixture of men not as yet famous,--probably never to be so,--but whom some indication of studies earnestly pursued, of sincere effort for the good of their fellow-men, had recommended to 'that hopeful interest which'--to quote a letter of her own--'the elder mind, dissatisfied with itself, delights to entertain with regard to those younger, whose years and powers hold a larger measure of unspoiled life.' It was Mr. Lewes who on these occasions contributed the cheerful _bonhomie_, the observant readiness, which are necessary for the facing of any social group. Mrs. Lewes's manner had a grave simplicity, which rose in closer converse into an almost pathetic anxiety to give of her best--to