lot,
for, considering her youth, her destiny has hardly begun. Somehow or
other, I do not think she will marry Sidney Wilton."

"I have sometimes thought that would be," said Endymion.

"Well, it would be, I think, a happy match. All the circumstances would
be collected that form what is supposed to be happiness. But tastes
differ about destinies as well as about manners. For my part, I think
to have a husband who loved you, and he clever, accomplished, charming,
ambitious, would be happiness; but I doubt whether your sister cares
so much about these things. She may, of course does, talk to you more
freely; but with others, in her most open hours, there seems a secret
fund of reserve in her character which I never could penetrate,
except, I think, it is a reserve which does not originate in a love of
tranquillity, but quite the reverse. She is a strong character."

"Then, hardly a capricious one."

"No, not capricious; I only said that to tease you. I am capricious;
I know it. I disregard people sometimes that I have patronised and
flattered. It is not merely that I have changed my opinion of them, but
I positively hate them."

"I hope you will never hate me," said Endymion.

"You have never offended my taste yet," said Lady Montfort with a smile.

Endymion was engaged to dine to-day with Mr. Bertie Tremaine. Although
now in hostile political camps, that great leader of men never permitted
their acquaintance to cease. "He is young," reasoned Mr. Bertie
Tremaine; "every political party changes its principles on an average
once in ten years. Those who are young must often then form new
connections, and Ferrars will then come to me. He will be ripe and
experienced, and I could give him a good deal. I do not want numbers. I
want men. In opposition, numbers often only embarrass. The power of the
future is ministerial capacity. The leader with a cabinet formed will
be the minister of England. He is not to trouble himself about numbers;
that is an affair of the constituencies."

Male dinners are in general not amusing. When they are formed, as they
usually are, of men who are supposed to possess a strong and common
sympathy--political, sporting, literary, military, social--there is
necessarily a monotony of thought and feeling, and of the materials
which induce thought and feeling. In a male dinner of party politicians,
conversation soon degenerates into what is termed "shop;" anecdotes
about divisions, criticism of s