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Manners, J. Hartley, 1870-1928

"Peg O' My Heart"


Is that conduct becoming your name? Think a little of your station
in life and what it demands."
"I wish YOU did a little more."
"What?" he shouted, all his anger returned.
"There's no need to raise your voice," Angela answered quietly. "I
am only a few feet away. I repeat that I wish you thought a little
more of your obligations. If you did and others like you in the same
position you are in, there would be no such horrible scenes as I saw
to-day; a man shot down amongst his own people for speaking the
truth."
"You SAW it?" Nathaniel asked in dismay.
"I did. I not only SAW, but I HEARD. I wish you had, too. I heard a
man lay bare his heart and his brain and his soul that others might
knew the light in them. I saw and heard a man offer up his life that
others might know some gleam of happiness in THEIR lives. It was
wonderful! It was heroic! It was God-like!"
"If I ever hear of you doing such a thing again, you shall go back
to London the next day."
"That sounds exactly as though my dead father were speaking."
"I'll not be made a laughing-stock by you."
"You make yourself one as your father did before you. A Kingsnorth!
What has your name meant? Because one of our forefathers cheated the
world into giving him a fortune, by buying his goods for more than
they were worth, we have tried to canonise him and put a halo around
the name of Kingsnorth.


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