that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He
must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of
friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew
his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life
by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with
Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at
Tankerville.

He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found
Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she
was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet
during the period she had undergone that great change which turns a
girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into the
room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,--as a loved and
loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost
privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by
so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as
far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to
come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I
hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave
up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have
them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping
dogs?"

"Only that the yelping dogs depend on you."

"It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the
world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that
you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've
nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now.
Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back.
They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was
ever known to break, and they won't be home till six."

"Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat.

"The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew
her?"

"Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?"

"She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first
cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as
she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those
Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the
old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home
with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself,