Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/141

 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY

going to say. Yet until that moment George and the matches had not been in my mind for three months, and it is plain that the part of the sentence which I uttered offers not the least cue or suggestion of what I was purposing to follow it with.

My mother 1 is descended from the younger of two English brothers named Lambton, who settled in this country a few generations ago. The tradition goes that the elder of the two eventually fell heir to a certain estate in England (now an earldom), and died right away. This has always been the way with our family. They always die when they could make anything by not doing it. The two Lambtons left plenty of Lambtons behind them; and when at last, about fifty, years ago, the English baronetcy was exalted to an earldom, the great tribe of Amer ican Lambtons began to bestir themselves that is, those descended from the elder branch. Ever since that day one or another of these has been fretting his life uselessly away with schemes to get at his &quot; rights.&quot; The present &quot;rightful earl&quot; I mean the American one used to write me occasionally, and try to interest me in his projected raids upon the title and estates by offering me a share in the latter portion of the spoil; but I have always managed to resist his temptations.

Well, one day last summer I was lying under a tree, thinking about nothing in particular, when an absurd idea flashed into imy head, and I said to a member of the household, &quot;Suppose I should live to be ninety-two, and dumb and blind and toothless,

1 She was still living when this was written,

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