unction not to put his
trust in princes.

"We shall be beaten, certainly," said Mr. Monk to Phineas, not long
afterwards.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I smell it in the air. I see it in men's faces."

"And yet it's a moderate Bill. They'll have to pass something
stronger before long if they throw it out now."

"It's not the Bill that they'll reject, but us. We have served our
turn, and we ought to go."

"The House is tired of the Duke?"

"The Duke is so good a man that I hardly like to admit even
that;--but I fear it is so. He is fretful and he makes enemies."

"I sometimes think that he is ill."

"He is ill at ease and sick at heart. He cannot hide his chagrin, and
then is doubly wretched because he has betrayed it. I do not know
that I ever respected and, at the same time, pitied a man more
thoroughly."

"He snubbed me awfully yesterday," said Phineas, laughing.

"He cannot help himself. He snubs me at every word that he speaks,
and yet I believe that he is most anxious to be civil to me. His
ministry has been of great service to the country. For myself, I
shall never regret having joined it. But I think that to him it has
been a continual sorrow."

The system on which the Duchess had commenced her career as wife of
the Prime Minister had now been completely abandoned. In the first
place, she had herself become so weary of it that she had been unable
to continue the exertion. She had, too, become in some degree ashamed
of her failures. The names of Major Pountney and Mr. Lopez were not
now pleasant to her ears, nor did she look back with satisfaction on
the courtesies she had lavished on Sir Orlando or the smiles she had
given to Sir Timothy Beeswax. "I've known a good many vulgar people
in my time," she said one day to Mrs. Finn, "but none ever so vulgar
as our ministerial supporters. You don't remember Mr. Bott, my dear.
He was before your time;--one of the arithmetical men, and a great
friend of Plantagenet's. He was very bad, but there have come up
worse since him. Sometimes, I think, I like a little vulgarity for a
change; but, upon my honour, when we get rid of all this it will be a
pleasure to go back to ladies and gentlemen." This the Duchess said
in her extreme bitterness.

"It seems to me that you have pretty well got rid of 'all this'
already."

"But I haven't got anybody else in their place. I have almost made up
my mind not to ask any one into the house for the next twelve months.
I u