mmon them back to their Christmas
homes.

Lord and Lady Roehampton gave constant dinners, and after they had tried
two or three, he expressed his wish to his wife that she should hold a
small reception after these dinners. He was a man of great tact, and he
wished to launch his wife quietly and safely on the social ocean. "There
is nothing like practising before Christmas, my love," he would say;
"you will get your hand in, and be able to hold regular receptions in
the spring." And he was quite right. The dinners became the mode, and
the assemblies were eagerly appreciated. The Secretary of the Treasury
whispered to an Under-Secretary of State,--"This marriage was a _coup_.
We have got another house."

Myra had been a little anxious about the relations between Lord
Roehampton and her brother. She felt, with a woman's instinct, that her
husband might not be overpleased by her devotion to Endymion, and she
could not resist the conviction that the disparity of age which is
easily forgotten in a wife, and especially in a wife who adores you,
assumes a different, and somewhat distasteful character, when a
great statesman is obliged to recognise it in the shape of a boyish
brother-in-law. But all went right, for the sweetness of Lord
Roehampton's temper was inexhaustible. Endymion had paid several visits
to St. James' square before Myra could seize the opportunity, for which
she was ever watching, to make her husband and her brother acquainted.

"And so you are one of us," said Lord Roehampton, with his sweetest
smile and in his most musical tone, "and in office. We must try to give
you a lift." And then he asked Endymion who was his chief, and how he
liked him, and then he said, "A good deal depends on a man's chief. I
was under your grandfather when I first entered parliament, and I never
knew a pleasanter man to do business with. He never made difficulties;
he always encouraged one. A younker likes that."

Lady Roehampton was desirous of paying some attention to all those who
had been kind to her brother; particularly Mr. Waldershare and Lord
Beaumaris--and she wished to invite them to her house. "I am sure
Waldershare would like to come," said Endymion, "but Lord Beaumaris,
I know, never goes anywhere, and I have myself heard him say he never
would."

"Yes, my lord was telling me Lord Beaumaris was quite _farouche_, and it
is feared that we may lose him. That would be sad," said Myra, "for he
is powerful."

"I sho