e world at large, but that, as my uncle
has just said, you are spared the peddling impertinence of Parliament
interfering at every moment, and questioning your conduct, from an
invitation to Cardinal Cullen to the dismissal of a chief constable.
Happily, the gentlemen at Westminster know nothing about Turkey, and have
the prudence not to ventilate their ignorance, except in secret committee.
I am sorry to have to tell you that my lord sees great difficulty in what
you propose as to yourself. F. O., he says, would not easily consent to
your being named even a third secretary without your going through the
established grade of attache. All the unquestionable merits he knows you to
possess would count for nothing against an official regulation. The course
my lord would suggest is this: To enter now as mere attache, to continue
in this position some three or four months, come over here for the general
election in February, get into "the House," and after some few sessions,
one or two, rejoin diplomacy, to which you might be appointed as a
secretary of legation. My uncle named to me three, if not four cases
of this kind--one, indeed, stepped at once into a mission and became a
minister; and though of course the Opposition made a fuss, they failed in
their attempt to break the appointment, and the man will probably be soon
an ambassador. I accept the little yataghan, but sincerely wish the present
had been of less value. There is one enormous emerald in the handle which I
am much tempted to transfer to a ring. Perhaps I ought, in decency, to have
your permission for the change. The burnous is very beautiful, but I could
not accept it--an article of dress is in the category of things impossible.
Have you no Irish sisters, or even cousins? Pray give me a destination to
address it to in your next.

'My uncle desires me to say that, all invaluable as your services have
become where you are, he needs you greatly here, and would hear with
pleasure that you were about to return. He is curious to know who wrote
"L'Orient et Lord D." in the last _Revue des Deux Mondes_. The savagery of
the attack implies a personal rancour. Find out the author, and reply to
him in the _Edinburgh_. My lord suspects he may have had access to the
papers he has already alluded to, and is the more eager to repossess them.'

A telegraphic despatch in cipher was put into his hands as he was reading.
It was from Lord Danesbury, and said: 'Come back as soon as