picy
remark and impertinent allusion in the debate; it's a sore subject, and
every one has a 'raw' on it; and, at last, somebody says something about
unequal matches, alliances with an inferior class, 'noble lords that
have not scrupled to mingle the ancient blood of their race with
the--the thin and washy current that flows in plebeian veins.' I 'm the
Lord Chancellor, now," said Grog, boldly, "and I immediately turn round
and fix my eyes upon _you_. Up you get at once, and say, 'I accept, my
Lords,--I accept for myself, and my own case, every word the noble Duke
or Marquis has just uttered. It never would have occurred to me to make
my personal history the subject of your Lordships' attention; but
when thus rudely brought before you,--rudely and gratuitously
introduced--'Here you 'd frown at the last speaker, as much as to say,
'You 'll hear more about this outside--'"

"Go on,--go on!" cried Beecher, with impatience.

"'I rise in this place,'--that has always a great impression, to say
'this place,'--'I rise in this place to say that I am prouder in the
choice that shares with me the honors of my coronet, than in all the
dignity and privilege that same coronet confers.' What a cheer, what
a regular hurrah follows that, for they have seen her,--ay, that have
they! They have beheld her sweeping down the gilded drawing-room,--the
handsomest woman in England! Where's the Duchess with her eyes, her
skin, her dignity, and her grace? Does n't she look 'thoroughbred in
every vein of her neck'? Where did she get that graceful sweep, that
easy-swimming gait, if she had n't it in her very nature'?"

"By Heaven, it's true, every syllable of it!" cried out Beecher, in all
the wild ecstasy of delight.

"Where is the man--I don't care what his rank might be--who would n't
envy you after you 'd made that speech? You 'd walk down Westminster the
proudest man in England after it."

Beecher's features glowed with a delight that showed he had already
anticipated the sense of his popularity.

"And then how the newspapers will praise you! It will be as if you built
a bridge over the gulf that separates two distinct classes of people.
You 'll be a sort of noble reformer. What was the wisest thing Louis
Napoleon ever did? His marriage. Do you mark that he was always
following his uncle's footsteps in all his other policy; he saw that the
only great mistake he ever made was looking out for a high match, and,
like a shrewd fellow, he s