"George, you
should keep your mother from worry and work. Don't let
her hair grow gray so soon."
George bowed. "I hope I shall do my duty," he said, with
dignity. "Come, mother."
As they drove down Piccadilly Mrs. Waldeaux chattered
eagerly to her son. She could not pour out her teeming
fancies about this new world to any body else, but she
could not talk fast enough to him. Had they not both
been waiting for a lifetime to see this London?
"The thing," she said earnestly, as she settled herself
beside him, "the thing that has impressed me most, I
think, were those great Ninevite gods yesterday. I sat
for hours before them while you were gone. There they
sit, their hands on their knees, and stare out of their
awful silence at the London fog, just as they stared at
the desert before Christ was born. I felt so miserably
young and sham!"
George adjusted his cravat impatiently. "I'm afraid I
don't quite follow you, mother. These little flights of
yours---- They belong to your generation, I suppose. It
was a more sentimental one than mine. You are not
very young. And you certainly are not a sham. The
statues are interesting, but I fail to see why they
should have had such an effect upon you."
"Oh!" said Frances. "But you did not stay alone with
them as long as I did, or you would have felt it too.
Now I am sure that the debates in Parliament impressed
you just as they did me?"
George said nothing, but she went on eagerly.
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