cretary to the Admiralty
with his wife were to dine in Berkeley Street, and that Mr. Wharton
was asked to meet them.

"I don't particularly want to meet Mr. Thomas Roby," the old
barrister said.

"They want you to come," said Emily, "because there has been some
family reconciliation. You usually do go once or twice a year."

"I suppose it may as well be done," said Mr. Wharton.

"I think, papa, that they mean to ask Mr. Lopez," said Emily
demurely.

"I told you before that I don't want to have you banished from your
aunt's home by any man," said the father. So the matter was settled,
and the invitation was accepted. This was just at the end of May,
at which time people were beginning to say that the coalition was
a success, and some wise men to predict that at last fortuitous
parliamentary atoms had so come together by accidental connexion,
that a ministry had been formed which might endure for a dozen years.
Indeed there was no reason why there should be any end to a ministry
built on such a foundation. Of course this was very comfortable to
such men as Mr. Roby, so that the Admiralty Secretary when he entered
his sister-in-law's drawing-room was suffused with that rosy hue of
human bliss which a feeling of triumph bestows. "Yes," said he, in
answer to some would-be facetious remark from his brother, "I think
we have weathered that storm pretty well. It does seem rather odd, my
sitting cheek by jowl with Mr. Monk and gentlemen of that kidney; but
they don't bite. I've got one of our own set at the head of our own
office, and he leads the House. I think upon the whole we've got a
little the best of it." This was listened to by Mr. Wharton with
great disgust,--for Mr. Wharton was a Tory of the old school, who
hated compromises, and abhorred in his heart the class of politicians
to whom politics were a profession rather than a creed.

Mr. Roby senior, having escaped from the House, was of course
the last, and had indeed kept all the other guests waiting
half-an-hour,--as becomes a parliamentary magnate in the heat of the
Session. Mr. Wharton, who had been early, saw all the other guests
arrive, and among them Mr. Ferdinand Lopez. There was also Mr. Mills
Happerton,--partner in Hunky and Sons,--with his wife, respecting
whom Mr. Wharton at once concluded that he was there as being the
friend of Ferdinand Lopez. If so, how much influence must Ferdinand
Lopez have in that house! Nevertheless, Mr. Mills Happerton was