'Yes, she goes from party to party--she gives herself up heart and mind
and soul to pleasures which she ought to consider only as the trivial
means to great ends; and she forgets the woman who reared her, and cared
for her, and watched over her from her infancy, and who tried to inspire
her with a noble ambition.--Yes, read to me, child, read. Give me new
thoughts, if you can, for my brain is weary with grinding the old ones.
There was a grand debate in the Lords last night, and Lord Hartfield
spoke. Let me hear his speech. You can read what was said by the man
before him; never mind the rest.'
Mary read Lord Somebody's speech, which was passing dull, but which
prepared the ground for a magnificent and exhaustive reply from Lord
Hartfield. The question was an important one, affecting the well-being
of the masses, and Lord Hartfield spoke with an eloquence which rose in
force and fire as he wound himself like a serpent into the heart of his
subject--beginning quietly, soberly, with no opening flashes of
rhetoric, but rising gradually to the topmost heights of oratory.
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