myself I may be run over by a hansom cab or even an omnibus, without
the slightest compunction on the part of the police on duty there.
But if Chiltern happens to be with me the whole of the traffic going
east and west is stopped, and a policeman with outstretched hands
stands waiting till we have gained the other side of the road.

We were gazing up with the crowd at somebody who was lighting the
big chandelier by swinging down from somewhere in the roof a sort
of censer, when Chiltern came out of the corridor and positively
began to scold us for being late. I thought that at the time very
mean, as I was just going to scold him; but he knows the advantage
of getting the first word. He says, Why were we half an hour late?
and how could he meet us there at four if at that time we had not
left home? But that's nonsense. Chiltern has naturally a great
flow of words, which he has cultivated by close attendance upon
his Parliamentary duties. But he is mistaken if he thinks I am a
Resolution and am to be moved by being "spoken to."

We walked through a gallery into a hall something like that in which
Chiltern had kept us waiting, only much smaller. This was full of men
chattering away in a manner of which an equal number of women would
have been ashamed. There was one nice pleasant-looking gentleman
carefully wrapped up in an overcoat with a fur collar and cuffs.
That was Earl Granville, Chiltern said. I was glad to see his
lordship looking so well and taking such care of himself. There
was another peer there, a little man with a beaked nose, the only
thing about him that reminded you of the Duke of Wellington. He had
no overcoat, being evidently too young to need or care for such
encumbrance. He wore a short surtout and a smart blue necktie, and
frisked about the hall in quite a lively way. Chiltern said that he
was Lord Hampton, with whom my great-grandfather went to Eton. He
was at that time plain "John Russell" (not Lord John of course),
and has for the last forty-five years been known as Sir John
Pakington. But then Chiltern has a way of saying funny things, and
I am not sure that he was in earnest in telling us that this active
young man was really the veteran of Droitwich.

From this hall, through a long carpeted passage, catching glimpses
on the way of snug writing rooms, cosy libraries, and other devices
for lightening senatorial labours, we arrived at a door over which
was painted the legend "To the Ladies' Gal