Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/166

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158
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.

regard to it; for the second, it was evident that she could afford the loss. Neither of them appeared at all disturbed by the stir which their engagement created, and the wedding took place in due season, the bridesmaids upon the occasion being little girls carrying large bouquets.

It is not desirable, perhaps, that an individual, and least of all a lady, should be burthened with the care and expenditure of so great an estate as that which has fallen to her lot, and it is probable that, as society matures and social science is perfected, such anomalies will cease to exist. It is also true that the best schemes which she has executed belonged properly to the government of her country. Such scenes of pollution as Nova Scotia Gardens could not be permitted by a government attentive to its duties. But so long as governments expend their chief energies and a great part of their resources upon distant and illegitimate objects, leaving their very capitals to grow foul and hellish under their eyes, so long will it be necessary for private generosity to mitigate evils which only the well directed resources of the whole people could remove.