'
I did not even smile at this speech, so entirely was the effect of
its egotism killed by the wonderful way of pronouncing the word
'mother.'
'You have heard,' he continued in a voice whose intense earnestness
had an irresistible fascination for the ear, like that of a Hindoo
charmer--'you have heard of the mother-bird who feeds her young from
the blood of her own breast; that bird but feebly typifies her whom
God, in His abundant love of me, gave me for a mother. There were ten
of us--ten little children. My mother was a female blacksmith of Old
Hill, who for four shillings and sixpence a week worked sixteen hours
a day for the fogger, hammering hot iron into nails. The scar upon my
forehead--look! it is shaped like the red-hot nail that one day leapt
upon me from her anvil, as I lay asleep in my swing above her head. I
would not lose it for all the diadems of all the monarchs of this
world. She was much too poor to educate us. When the wolf is at the
door, Mr. Aylwin, and the very flesh and blood of the babes in danger
of perishing, what mother can find time to think of education, to
think even of the salvation of the soul,--to think of anything but
food--food? Have you ever wanted food, Mr.
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