88/99 It seemed for a while as if the events of our tale did her harm; but it was not so in the end. Here the little girl, who had often carried a pitcher on her head down to the Liffey, and had played Polly Peachum in a booth, became a lion; dramatic, political and literary, and the center of the wit of that wittiest of cities. They said she was a naughty woman, and not fit for them morally. She said they had but two topics, "silks and scandal," and were unfit for her intellectually. But it is darkest just before sunrise. |