Remote as her life had been
from the busy world, her ladyship had never allowed her knowledge of
public life and the bent of modern thought to fall into arrear. She took
a keen interest in politics, in progress of all kinds. She was a staunch
Conservative, and looked upon every Liberal politician as her personal
enemy; but she took care to keep herself informed of everything that was
being said or done in the enemy's camp. She had an intense respect for
Lord Bacon's maxim: Knowledge is power. It was a kind of power secondary
to the power of wealth, perhaps; but wealth unprotected by wisdom would
soon dwindle into poverty.
Lady Lesbia sauntered about the lawn, looking very elegant in her
cream-coloured Indian silk gown, very listless, very tired of her lovely
surroundings. Neither lake nor mountain possessed any charm for her. She
had had too much of them. Mary roamed about with a swifter footstep,
looking at the roses, plucking off a dead leaf, or a cankered bud here
and there. Presently she tore across the lawn to the shrubbery which
screened the lawn and flower gardens from the winding carriage drive
sunk many feet below, and disappeared in a thicket of arbutus and Irish
yew.
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