erally supposed that the ministry would immediately resign.
Their new measures had not revived their popularity, and the parliament
in which they had been condemned had been elected under their own advice
and influence. Mr. Sidney Wilton had even told Endymion to get their
papers in order; and all around the somewhat dejected private secretary
there were unmistakable signs of that fatal flitting which is peculiarly
sickening to the youthful politician.

He was breakfasting in his rooms at the Albany with not a good appetite.
Although he had for some time contemplated the possibility of such
changes--and contemplated them, as he thought, with philosophy--when
it came to reality and practice, he found his spirit was by no means so
calm, or his courage so firm, as he had counted on. The charms of
office arrayed themselves before him. The social influence, the secret
information, the danger, the dexterity, the ceaseless excitement, the
delights of patronage which everybody affects to disregard, the power
of benefiting others, and often the worthy and unknown which is a real
joy--in eight-and-forty hours or so, all these, to which he had now been
used for some time, and which with his plastic disposition had become
a second nature, were to vanish, and probably never return. Why should
they? He took the gloomiest view of the future, and his inward soul
acknowledged that the man the country wanted was Peel. Why might he not
govern as long as Pitt? He probably would. Peel! his father's friend!
And this led to a train of painful but absorbing memories, and he sat
musing and abstracted, fiddling with an idle egg-spoon.

His servant came in with a note, which he eagerly opened. It ran thus:
"I must see you instantly. I am here in the brougham, Cork Street end.
Come directly. B. M."

Endymion had to walk up half the Albany, and marked the brougham the
whole way. There was in it an eager and radiant face.

"You had better get in," said Lady Montfort, "for in these stirring
times some of the enemy may be passing. And now," she continued, when
the door was fairly shut, "nobody knows it, not five people. They are
going to dissolve."

"To dissolve!" exclaimed Endymion. "Will that help us?"

"Very likely," said Berengaria. "We have had our share of bad luck,
and now we may throw in. Cheap bread is a fine cry. Indeed it is too
shocking that there should be laws which add to the price of what
everybody agrees is the staff of life. Bu