Would the child, amused as it was with the flowers that jutted out from the rock’s impending edge, and pleased with the species of independence which its movements and new position signified, would the child have been lured by the exhibition of any other bosom than that of its mother? Had a stranger discovered the little adventurer, and being like Leucippe, conscious of the danger of calling aloud, of startling the child by any approach, had she bared her bosom, would not the infant have turned away without interest from the exhibition, and pursued its new occupation of flower gathering? Undoubtedly the unknown, who had from _prudence_ done what _affection_ suggested to Leucippe, would have seen at once that she lacked the attractive power, that there was no sympathy between her and the child. She might have felt all that a woman can feel for the lovely infant of another—thus dangerously situated—but the infant itself would not have been influenced by a corresponding sympathy; it would have lacked that affection necessary to a proper response to the exhibition. The triumph, then, is one of affection sympathizing with affection; corresponding love answering with miraculous organ, and instructing the great and good of all subsequent times by the promptings of a mother’s instincts, and the sympathies of an infant’s feelings. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.” I was struck a few months since with the distress that was bearing down an intimate friend, and he made me the confidant of his sorrows, and of their cause. The young offender had forgotten the respect due to his parents; he had forgotten or disregarded the _respect_ which he owed to the beautiful fame which had come down to him unsullied through several generations; family pride, instead of exhibiting itself in supporting the long-descended credit, was visible in a sort of obstinate adherence to some misconceived ideas of _self_-importance; he was ruining his own health, and was fast approaching the precipice over which his passions, or rather let me say, his _passion_, would soon hurry him. His father had, at times, severely chid the wayward youth, and the mother had, day by day, warned him of his danger, so that he had by his false estimate of filial duties and parental care, rather been accelerated in his progress toward the line of destruction. A change was suggested in the mode of dealing—his own danger was not pointed out, but his attention was attracted back upon those whom he had loved—and had left; he saw whence he had derived all that delight to childhood, and he turned back to the fountain of affection which had gushed anew; and the birds of prey that had been hovering round the precipice where he hung were disappointed of their quarry. Those, who had wheeled around him with pliant wing and open beak, hopeful of spoil, screamed their disappointment in their filthy eyrie, and confessed their defeat in the triumph of nature and affection.