human
Jenny also struck upon what may be mentioned now as the deepest chord in Johnstone's sympathies; it is heard sounding in the letters, quoted below, that review the stories of Ruth, Fantine, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. His attitude in this matter was free from conventional ethics, and was, therefore, essentially Christian; and the relations of society to technically errant women, who have lapsed even once by accident, preoccupied him bitterly, and that in no theoretical or sequestered way. In his own gipsy experience, he witnessed at least one instance where the issue only just escaped disaster. He was haunted by the story, as De Quincey was by that of his lost companion in Oxford Street. The girl whom Johnstone, though generally hard up, managed to befriend in his secret, chivalrous and effectual fashion, finally married some one decent and respectable. Concealing the place and circumstance, he afterwards cast the incident of the
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Fantine of Shotover