es; this little _cadeau_ from his mother has touched his filial
heart. He is rushing home to Framley to pay back the dowager's hard
moidores in soft caresses. I wish I had a mother; I know that." And
Mark still felt that he feared Mr. Sowerby, but he could not make up
his mind to break away from him.

And there was much talk of politics just then at the castle. Not that
the duke joined in it with any enthusiasm. He was a Whig--a huge
mountain of a colossal Whig--all the world knew that. No opponent
would have dreamed of tampering with his Whiggery, nor would any
brother Whig have dreamed of doubting it. But he was a Whig who gave
very little practical support to any set of men, and very little
practical opposition to any other set. He was above troubling himself
with such sublunar matters. At election time he supported, and always
carried, Whig candidates: and in return he had been appointed lord
lieutenant of the county by one Whig minister, and had received the
Garter from another. But these things were matters of course to a
Duke of Omnium, He was born to be a lord lieutenant and a Knight of
the Garter. But not the less on account of his apathy, or rather
quiescence, was it thought that Gatherum Castle was a fitting place
in which politicians might express to each other their present hopes
and future aims, and concoct together little plots in a half-serious
and half-mocking way. Indeed it was hinted that Mr. Supplehouse and
Harold Smith, with one or two others, were at Gatherum for this
express purpose. Mr. Fothergill, too, was a noted politician, and
was supposed to know the duke's mind well; and Mr. Green Walker, the
nephew of the marchioness, was a young man whom the duke desired to
have brought forward. Mr. Sowerby also was the duke's own member, and
so the occasion suited well for the interchange of a few ideas.

The then prime minister, angry as many men were with him, had not
been altogether unsuccessful. He had brought the Russian war to a
close, which, if not glorious, was at any rate much more so than
Englishmen at one time had ventured to hope. And he had had wonderful
luck in that Indian Mutiny. It is true that many of those even who
voted with him would declare that this was in no way attributable
to him. Great men had risen in India and done all that. Even his
minister there, the Governor whom he had sent out, was not allowed
in those days any credit for the success which was achieved under
his orders