ext to the duke indulged in mysterious fiddle-fadde as
to the state of parties. She too had her correspondents, and her letters
received or awaited. Tadpole said this; Lord Masque, on the contrary,
said that: the truth lay perhaps between them; some result developed by
the clear intelligence of Lady Firebrace acting on the data with
which they supplied her. The duke listened with calm excitement to
the transcendental revelations of his Egeria. Nothing appeared to be
concealed from her; the inmost mind of the sovereign: there was not
a royal prejudice that was not mapped in her secret inventory; the
cabinets of the whigs and the clubs of the tories, she had the "open
sesame" to all of them. Sir Somebody did not want office, though he
pretended to; and Lord Nobody did want office, though he pretended he
did not. One great man thought the pear was not ripe; another that it
was quite rotten; but then the first was coming on the stage, and the
other was going off. In estimating the accuracy of a political opinion,
one should take into consideration the standing of the opinionist.

At the right moment, and when she was sure she was not overheard, Lady
Firebrace played her trump card, the pack having been previously cut by
Mr Tadpole.

"And who do you think Sir Robert would send to Ireland?" and she looked
up in the face of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine.

"I suppose the person he sent before," said his grace.

Lady Firebrace shook her head.

"Lord Haddington will not go to Ireland again," replied her ladyship,
mysteriously; "mark me. And Lord De Grey does not like to go; and if he
did, there are objections. And the Duke of Northumberland, he will not
go. And who else is there? We must have a nobleman of the highest rank
for Ireland; one who has not mixed himself up with Irish questions; who
has always been in old days for emancipation; a conservative, not an
orangeman. You understand. That is the person Sir Robert will send, and
whom Sir Robert wants."

"He will have some difficulty in finding such a person," said the duke.
"If, indeed, the blundering affair of 1834 had not occurred, and things
had taken their legitimate course, and we had seen a man like Lord
Stanley for instance at the head of affairs, or leading a great party,
why then indeed your friends the conservatives,--for every sensible
man must be a conservative, in the right sense of the word,--would have
stood in a very different position; but now--," and his g