their youth, but an insular country subject
to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen. I
attribute a great deal of the nonsense called Conservative Reaction to
Peel's solemnity. The proper minister for England at this moment would
be Pitt. Extreme youth gives hope to a country; coupled with ceremonious
manners, hope soon assumes the form of confidence."

"Ah!" murmured Endymion.

"I had half a mind to ask Jawett to dinner to-day. His powers are
unquestionable, but he is not a practical man. For instance, I think
myself our colonial empire is a mistake, and that we should disembarrass
ourselves of its burthen as rapidly as is consistent with the dignity of
the nation; but were Jawett in the House of Commons to-morrow, nothing
would satisfy him but a resolution for the total and immediate abolition
of the empire, with a preamble denouncing the folly of our fathers in
creating it. Jawett never spares any one's self-love."

"I know him very well," said Endymion; "he is in my office. He is very
uncompromising."

"Yes," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine musingly; "if I had to form a
government, I could hardly offer him the cabinet." Then speaking more
rapidly, he added, "The man you should attach yourself to is my brother
Augustus--Mr. Tremaine Bertie. There is no man who understands foreign
politics like Augustus, and he is a thorough man of the world."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

When parliament reassembled in February, the Neuchatels quitted Hainault
for their London residence in Portland Place. Mrs. Neuchatel was
sadly troubled at leaving her country home, which, notwithstanding its
distressing splendour, had still some forms of compensatory innocence
in its flowers and sylvan glades. Adriana sighed when she called to mind
the manifold and mortifying snares and pitfalls that awaited her, and
had even framed a highly practical and sensible scheme which would
permit her parents to settle in town and allow Myra and herself to
remain permanently in the country; but Myra brushed away the project
like a fly, and Adriana yielding, embraced her with tearful eyes.

The Neuchatel mansion in Portland Place was one of the noblest in that
comely quarter of the town, and replete with every charm and convenience
that wealth and taste could provide. Myra, who, like her brother, had a
tenacious memory, was interested in recalling as fully and as accurately
as possible her previous experience of London life. She was then