etimes turns out
to be a catastrophe, and the heroine a copy instead of an original; but
let that pass.

Lord Marney liked to be surrounded by those who sympathised with his
pursuit; and his pursuit was politics, and politics on a great scale.
The commonplace career of official distinction was at his command. A
great peer, with abilities and ambition, a good speaker, supposed to be
a Conservative, he might soon have found his way into the cabinet,
and, like the rest, have assisted in registering the decrees of one
too powerful individual. But Lord Marney had been taught to think at
a period of life when he little dreamed of the responsibility which
fortune had in store for him.

The change in his position had not altered the conclusions at which
he had previously arrived. He held that the state of England,
notwithstanding the superficies of a material prosperity, was one of
impending doom, unless it were timely arrested by those who were in high
places. A man of fine mind rather than of brilliant talents, Lord Marney
found, in the more vivid and impassioned intelligence of Coningsby, the
directing sympathy which he required. Tadpole looked upon his lordship
as little short of insane. 'Do you see that man?' he would say as Lord
Marney rode by. 'He might be Privy Seal, and he throws it all away for
the nonsense of Young England!'

Mrs. Coningsby entered the room almost on the footsteps of the Marneys.

'I am in despair about Harry,' she said, as she gave a finger to
Sidonia, 'but he told me not to wait for him later than eight. I suppose
he is kept at the House. Do you know anything of him, Lord Henry?'

'You may make yourself quite easy about him,' said Lord Henry. 'He
promised Vavasour to support a motion which he has to-day, and perhaps
speak on it. I ought to be there too, but Charles Buller told me there
would certainly be no division and so I ventured to pair off with him.'

'He will come with Vavasour,' said Sidonia, 'who makes up our party.
They will be here before we have seated ourselves.'

The gentlemen had exchanged the usual inquiry, whether there was
anything new to-day, without waiting for the answer. Sidonia introduced
Tancred and Lord Marney.

'And what have you been doing to-day?' said Edith to Sybil, by whose
side she had seated herself. 'Lady Bardolf did nothing last night but
gronder me, because you never go to her parties. In vain I said that you
looked upon her as the most odious of her sex