always affected him when he was going to speak. “And I _do_ think,” said the Duchess, with shrill endeavour to make her voice reach the back of the hall, “I _do_ think that the more we consider such matters the more likely we are to understand them and to realise what they mean, and to gain a better and a wider and a truer knowledge.” The three clergymen said, “Good, good,” in a burst of respectful approbation, as men suddenly illuminated by a new thought. “I am tempted to go further,” said the Duchess, waving her notes threateningly at the audience, “to go further, and express myself, if I may so say, that having put our hands to the plough—” She looked round at the straight line of folk behind her, and they endeavoured to convey by their looks that if a Duchess could not be allowed the use of daring metaphor, then it would have to be denied to everybody. “Having put our hands to the plough, we shall not turn back—(slight cheering)—we shall not falter—(renewed slight cheering)—we shall not loiter by the roadside, but we shall go steadily on, knowing well that—that—” Here the Duchess found her notes and read the last words of her peroration carefully, “knowing well that our goal is none other than the rising sun, which symbolises so happily the renaissance—” Here she looked down at the reporters’ table, and seemed about to spell the word, but refraining contented herself by saying it again with great distinctness. “The renaissance of British Trade and British Supremacy!”