re else if once we resigned this one."

"We should have to be contented with the Chiltern Hundreds, I'm afraid.
Besides, I am not a bit hot; it is never too warm for me. The thing I
hate most in the world is cold; it is the one thing that makes it
impossible for me to talk, and I'm miserable when I'm not talking. I
mean to read a paper before the Royal Society some day, to prove that
the bacillus of conversation can not germinate in a temperature of less
than sixty degrees."

"I hate being cold, too. How much alike we are!"

"I loathe going to gorgeous parties in cold houses," continued
Elisabeth, "and having priceless dinners in fireless rooms. On such
occasions I always feel inclined to say to my hostess, as the poor do,
'Please, ma'am, may I have a coal-ticket instead of a soup-ticket, if I
mayn't have both?'"

"You are a fine lady and I am a struggling artist, so I want you to
tell me who some of these people are," Cecil begged; "I hardly know
anybody, and I expect there is nobody here that you don't know; so
please point out to me some of the great of the earth. First, can you
tell me who that man is over there, talking to the lady in blue? He has
such a sad, kind face."

"Oh! that is Lord Wrexham--a charming man and a bachelor. He was jilted
a long time ago by Mrs. Paul Seaton--Miss Carnaby she was then--and
people say he has never got over it. It is she that he is talking to
now."

"How very interesting! Yes; I like his face, and I am sure he has
suffered. It is strange how women invariably behave worst to the best
men! I'm not sure that I admire her. She is very stylish and perfectly
dressed, but I don't think I should have broken my heart over her if I
had been my Lord Wrexham."

"He was perfectly devoted to her, I believe; and she really is
attractive when you talk to her, she is so very brilliant and amusing."

"She looks brilliant, and a little hard," was Cecil Farquhar's comment.

"I don't think she is really hard, for she adores her husband, and
devotes all her time and all her talents to helping him politically. He
is Postmaster-General, you know; and is bound to get still higher office
some day."

"Have they any children?"

"No; only politics."

"What is he like? I have never seen him."

"He is an interesting man, and an extremely able one. I should think
that as a husband he would be too self-opinionated for my taste; but he
and his wife seem to suit each other down to the ground. Some