ment lasted it would gratify him to meet my
wishes. Barron says the government will last. They will have a majority,
and if Stanley and Graham had joined them, they would have had not an
inconsiderable one. But in that case I should probably not have had the
cabinet, if indeed he meant to offer it to me now."

"Of course he did," said his wife. "Who has such claims as you have?
Well, now we must hope and watch. Look cheerful to the children, for
they have been very anxious."

With this hint the meeting was not unhappy, and the evening passed with
amusement and interest. Endymion embraced his father with warmth, and
Myra kissed him on both cheeks. Mr. Ferrars had a great deal of gossip
which interested his wife, and to a certain degree his children. The
latter of course remembered Zenobia, and her sayings and doings were
always amusing. There were anecdotes, too, of illustrious persons which
always interest, especially when in the personal experience of those
with whom we are intimately connected. What the Duke, or Sir Robert, or
Lord Lyndhurst said to papa seemed doubly wiser or brighter than if
it had been said to a third person. Their relations with the world
of power, and fashion, and fame, seemed not to be extinct, at least
reviving from their torpid condition. Mr. Ferrars had also brought a
German book for Myra; and "as for you, Endymion," he said, "I have been
much more successful for you than for your father, though I hope I shall
not have myself in the long run to complain. Our friends are faithful to
us, and I have got you put down on the private list for a clerkship both
in the Foreign Office and the Treasury. They are the two best things,
and you will have one of the first vacancies that will occur in either
department. I know your mother wishes you to be in the Foreign
Office. Let it be so if it come. I confess, myself, remembering your
grandfather's career, I have always a weakness for the Treasury, but so
long as I see you well planted in Whitehall, I shall be content. Let
me see, you will be sixteen in March. I could have wished you to wait
another year, but we must be ready when the opening occurs."

The general election in 1834-5, though it restored the balance of
parties, did not secure to Sir Robert Peel a majority, and the anxiety
of the family at Hurstley was proportionate to the occasion. Barron was
always sanguine, but the vote on the Speakership could not but alarm
them. Barron said it did not