gh I may have
grumbled I have still been proud to see you disdain,--to wrap
yourself in the swaddling bandages of Court life. You have ridiculed
all those who have been near her Majesty as Court ladies."

"The individuals, Plantagenet, perhaps; but not the office. I am
getting older now, and I do not see why I should not begin a new
life." She had been somewhat quelled by his unexpected energy, and
was at the moment hardly able to answer him with her usual spirit.

"Do not think of it, my dear. You asked whether your rank was high
enough. It must be so, as there is, as it happens, none higher. But
your position, should it come to pass that your husband is the head
of the Government, will be too high. I may say that in no condition
should I wish my wife to be subject to other restraint than that
which is common to all married women. I should not choose that she
should have any duties unconnected with our joint family and home.
But as First Minister of the Crown I would altogether object to her
holding an office believed to be at my disposal." She looked at him
with her large eyes wide open, and then left him without a word. She
had no other way of showing her displeasure, for she knew that when
he spoke as he had spoken now all argument was unavailing.

The Duke remained an hour alone before he was joined by the other
Duke, during which he did not for a moment apply his mind to
the subject which might be thought to be most prominent in his
thoughts,--the filling up, namely, of a list of his new government.
All that he could do in that direction without further assistance
had been already done very easily. There were four or five certain
names,--names that is of certain political friends, and three or four
almost equally certain of men who had been political enemies, but who
would now clearly be asked to join the ministry. Sir Gregory Grogram,
the late Attorney-General, would of course be asked to resume
his place; but Sir Timothy Beeswax, who was up to this moment
Solicitor-General for the Conservatives, would also be invited to
retain that which he held. Many details were known, not only to the
two dukes who were about to patch up the ministry between them, but
to the political world at large,--and were facts upon which the
newspapers were able to display their wonderful foresight and general
omniscience with their usual confidence. And as to the points which
were in doubt,--whether or not, for instance, that consist