d to
him to be unhappy because he or his party were beaten on a measure.
When President of the Council, he could do his duty and enjoy London
life. When in opposition, he could linger in Italy till May and
devote his leisure to his trees and his bullocks. He was always
esteemed, always self-satisfied, and always Duke of St. Bungay. But
with our Duke it was very different. Patriotism with him was a fever,
and the public service an exacting mistress. As long as this had been
all he had still been happy. Not trusting much in himself, he had
never aspired to great power. But now, now at last, ambition had laid
hold of him,--and the feeling, not perhaps uncommon with such men,
that personal dishonour would be attached to political failure. What
would his future life be if he had so carried himself in his great
office as to have shown himself to be unfit to resume it? Hitherto
any office had sufficed him in which he might be useful;--but now he
must either be Prime Minister, or a silent, obscure, and humbled man!

DEAR DUKE,

I will be with you to-morrow morning at 11 A.M., if you
can give me half-an-hour.

Yours affectionately,

ST. B.

The Prime Minister received this note one afternoon, a day or two
before that appointed for the second reading, and meeting his friend
within an hour in the House of Lords, confirmed the appointment.
"Shall I not rather come to you?" he said. But the old Duke, who
lived in St. James's Square, declared that Carlton Terrace would be
in his way to Downing Street; and so the matter was settled. Exactly
at eleven the two Ministers met. "I don't like troubling you," said
the old man, "when I know that you have so much to think of."

"On the contrary, I have but little to think of,--and my thoughts
must be very much engaged, indeed, when they shall be too full to
admit of my seeing you."

"Of course we are all anxious about this Bill." The Prime Minister
smiled. Anxious! Yes, indeed. His anxiety was of such a nature that
it kept him awake all night, and never for a moment left his mind
free by day. "And of course we must be prepared as to what shall be
done either in the event of success or of failure."

"You might as well read that," said the other. "It only reached me
this morning, or I should have told you of it." The letter was a
communication from the Solicitor-General containing his resignation.
He had now studied the County Suffrage Bill closely, and regretted
t