wn and used when wanted, without having
received crack or detriment from that independent action into which a
politician is likely to fall when his party is "in" but he is still
"out". He was Lord Privy Seal,--a Lordship of State which does carry
with it a status and a seat in the Cabinet, but does not necessarily
entail any work. But the present Lord, who cared nothing for status,
and who was much more intent on his work than he was even on his seat
in the Cabinet, was possessed by what many of his brother politicians
regarded as a morbid dislike to pretences. He had not been happy
during his few weeks of the Privy Seal, and had almost envied Mr.
Bonteen the realities of the Board of Trade. "I think upon the whole
it will be best to make the change," he said to Mr. Gresham. And Mr.
Gresham was delighted.

But there were one or two men of mark,--one or two who were older
than Mr. Gresham probably, and less perfect in their Liberal
sympathies,--who thought that the Duke of Omnium was derogating from
his proper position in the step which he was now taking. Chief among
these was his friend the Duke of St. Bungay, who alone perhaps could
venture to argue the matter with him. "I almost wish that you had
spoken to me first," said the elder Duke.

"I feared that I should find you so strongly opposed to my
resolution."

"If it was a resolution."

"I think it was," said the younger. "It was a great misfortune to me
that I should have been obliged to leave the House of Commons."

"You should not feel it so."

"My whole life was there," said he who, as Plantagenet Palliser, had
been so good a commoner.

"But your whole life should certainly not be there now,--nor your
whole heart. On you the circumstances of your birth have imposed
duties quite as high, and I will say quite as useful, as any which a
career in the House of Commons can put within the reach of a man."

"Do you think so, Duke?"

"Certainly I do. I do think that the England which we know could not
be the England that she is but for the maintenance of a high-minded,
proud, and self-denying nobility. And though with us there is no
line dividing our very broad aristocracy into two parts, a higher
and a lower, or a greater and a smaller, or a richer and a poorer,
nevertheless we all feel that the success of our order depends
chiefly on the conduct of those whose rank is the highest and whose
means are the greatest. To some few, among whom you are conspicuously