le
novice greedy for party tattle, and full of admiring reverence for
the two great hierophants of petty mysteries before him, ventured to
intimate his anxiety for initiation, the secret was entrusted to him,
"that all was right there; that his grace only watched his opportunity;
that he was heartily sick of the present men; indeed, would have gone
over with Lord Stanley in 1835, had he not had a fit of the gout, which
prevented him from coming up from the north; and though to be sure his
son and brother did vote against the speaker, still that was a mistake;
if a letter had been sent, which was not written, they would have voted
the other way, and perhaps Sir Robert might have been in at the present
moment."

The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine was the great staple of Lady Firebrace's
correspondence with Mr Tadpole. "Woman's mission" took the shape to her
intelligence of getting over his grace to the conservatives. She was
much assisted in these endeavours by the information which she so
dexterously acquired from the innocent and incautious Lord Masque.

Egremont was seated at dinner to-day by the side of Lady Joan.
Unconsciously to himself this had been arranged by Lady Marney. The
action of woman on our destiny is unceasing. Egremont was scarcely in a
happy mood for conversation. He was pensive, inclined to be absent; his
thoughts indeed were of other things and persons than those around him.
Lady Joan however only required a listener. She did not make enquiries
like Lady Maud, or impart her own impressions by suggesting them as your
own. Lady Joan gave Egremont an account of the Aztec cities, of which
she had been reading that morning, and of the several historical
theories which their discovery had suggested; then she imparted her own,
which differed from all, but which seemed clearly the right one. Mexico
led to Egypt. Lady Joan was as familiar with the Pharaohs as with the
Caciques of the new world. The phonetic system was despatched by the
way. Then came Champollion; then Paris; then all its celebrities,
literary and especially scientific; then came the letter from Arago
received that morning; and the letter from Dr Buckland expected
to-morrow. She was delighted that one had written; wondered why the
other had not. Finally before the ladies had retired, she had invited
Egremont to join Lady Marney in a visit to her observatory, where they
were to behold a comet which she had been the first to detect.

Lady Firebrace n