called,--a legacy which that lady had repudiated. The money had,
in truth, been given away to a relation of the Duke's by the joint
consent of the lady and of the Duke himself, but the Duchess was
pleased to refer to it occasionally as a still existing property.

"My five-and-twenty thousand pounds, as you call it, would not go
very far."

"What's the use of money if you don't spend it? The Duke would go
on collecting it and buying more property, which always means more
trouble,--not because he is avaricious, but because for the time
that comes easier than spending. Supposing he had married a woman
without a shilling, he would still have been a rich man. As it is,
my property was more even than his own. If we can do any good by
spending the money, why shouldn't it be spent?"

"If you can do any good!"

"It all comes round to that. It isn't because I like always to live
in a windmill! I have come to hate it. At this moment I would give
worlds to be down at Matching with no one but the children, and to
go about in a straw hat and a muslin gown. I have a fancy that I
could sit under a tree and read a sermon, and think it the sweetest
recreation. But I've made the attempt to do all this, and it is so
mean to fail!"

"But where is to be the end of it?"

"There shall be no end as long as he is Prime Minister. He is the
first man in England. Some people would say the first in Europe,--or
in the world. A Prince should entertain like a Prince."

"He need not be always entertaining."

"Hospitality should run from a man with his wealth and his position,
like water from a fountain. As his hand is known to be full, so it
should be known to be open. When the delight of his friends is in
question he should know nothing of cost. Pearls should drop from him
as from a fairy. But I don't think you understand me."

"Not when the pearls are to be picked up by Captain Gunners, Lady
Glen."

"I can't make the men any better,--nor yet the women. They are poor
mean creatures. The world is made up of such. I don't know that
Captain Gunner is worse than Sir Orlando Drought or Sir Timothy
Beeswax. People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen
by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to
them, whereas things become bigger. I remember when I used to think
that members of the Cabinet were almost gods, and now they seem to be
no bigger than the shoeblacks,--only less picturesque. He told me the
oth