She noticed how young she was and full of the promise of womanhood.

The sight made her so uneasy that she fidgeted the cups upon their saucers.
"Yes--enough work to last a lifetime," said Mary, as if concluding some passage of thought.
Mrs.Seal brightened at once.

She lamented her lack of scientific training, and her deficiency in the processes of logic, but she set her mind to work at once to make the prospects of the cause appear as alluring and important as she could.

She delivered herself of an harangue in which she asked a great many rhetorical questions and answered them with a little bang of one fist upon another.
"To last a lifetime?
My dear child, it will last all our lifetimes.

As one falls another steps into the breach.