"I've got no mission," said Mr. Glascock,—"either from the Foreign Office, or from my own inner convictions."
Miss Petrie laughed with a scornful laugh. "I spoke, sir, of the mission of that small speck on the earth's broad surface, of which you think so much, and which we call Great Britain."
"I do think a good deal of it," said Mr. Glascock.
"It has been more thought of than any other speck of the same size," said Carry Spalding.
"True," said Miss Petrie, sharply;—"because of its iron and coal. But the mission I spoke of was this." And she put forth her hand with an artistic motion as she spoke. "It utters prophecies, though it cannot read them. It sends forth truth, though it cannot understand it. Though its own ears are deaf as adders', it is the nursery of poets, who sing not for their own countrymen, but for the higher sensibilities and newer intelligences of lands, in which philanthropy has made education as common as the air that is breathed."
"Wally," said Olivia, coming up to the poetess, in anger that was almost apparent, "I want to take you, and introduce you to the Marchesa Pulti."
But Miss Petrie no doubt knew that the eldest son of an English lord was at least as good as an Italian marchesa. "Let her come here," said the poetess, with her grandest smile.