We must remember that the world is
ours too, ours--little as we have ever had to say about anything!--and
that the question is _not_ yet definitely settled whether it shall be a
place of injustice or a place of love!"
It was with this that the young lady finished her harangue, which was
not followed by her sinking exhausted into her chair or by any of the
traces of a laboured climax. She only turned away slowly towards her
mother, smiling over her shoulder at the whole room, as if it had been a
single person, without a flush in her whiteness, or the need of drawing
a longer breath. The performance had evidently been very easy to her,
and there might have been a kind of impertinence in her air of not
having suffered from an exertion which had wrought so powerfully on
every one else. Ransom broke into a genial laugh, which he instantly
swallowed again, at the sweet grotesqueness of this virginal creature's
standing up before a company of middle-aged people to talk to them about
"love," the note on which she had closed her harangue. It was the most
charming touch in the whole thing, and the most vivid proof of her
innocence. She had had immense success, and Mrs. Tarrant, as she took
her into her arms and kissed her, was certainly able to feel that the
audience was not disappointed.
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