There were several other speeches, none of them saying anything that had not been said before and all of them should certainly have been shorter.
Zosina realised that they were all made by people who had to be heard because of their position in the country and it was with relief that she saw the Queen Mother rise and realised that this would be the last speech of the evening.
There was tremendous applause.
Then in her musical voice, speaking clearly and with a diction that her granddaughters had always admired, the Queen Mother thanked them all for her welcome to Dórsia and said how impressed she and her granddaughter had been with everything they had seen and all the charming people they had met.
“We are only halfway through this delightful visit,” she said, “and I cannot tell you how
