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his temper, made it sink into nothing, to give way to the new rising difficulty, how she might bear to obey, or how risk to refuse, the rude and peremptory summons which she had just received. Ought I, she cried, to submit to treatment so mortifying? Are there no boundaries to the exactions of prudence upon feeling? or, rather, is there not a mental necessity, a call of character, a cry of propriety, that should supersede, occasionally, all prudential considerations, however urgent?—Oh! if those who receive, from the unequal conditions of life, the fruits of the toils of others, could,—only for a few days,—experience, personally, how cruelly those toils are embittered by arrogance, or how sweetly they may be softened by kindness,—the race of the Mrs. Iretons would become rare,—and Lady Aurora Granville might, perhaps, be paralleled!
Yet, with civility, with good manners, had Mrs. Ireton made this request; not issued it as a command by a footman;
