ay of this visit, she said a
soft word of apology to him. "I am so busy with all these people,
that I hardly know what I am doing. But we shall be able to find a
quiet minute or two at Loughlinter,--unless, indeed, you intend to
be on the mountains all day. I suppose you have brought a gun like
everybody else?"

"Yes;--I have brought a gun. I do shoot; but I am not an inveterate
sportsman."

On that one day there was a great riding party made up, and Phineas
found himself mounted, after luncheon, with some dozen other
equestrians. Among them were Miss Effingham and Lady Glencora, Mr.
Ratler and the Earl of Brentford himself. Lady Glencora, whose
husband was, as has been said, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who
was still a young woman, and a very pretty woman, had taken lately
very strongly to politics, which she discussed among men and women
of both parties with something more than ordinary audacity. "What a
nice, happy, lazy time you've had of it since you've been in," said
she to the Earl.

"I hope we have been more happy than lazy," said the Earl.

"But you've done nothing. Mr. Palliser has twenty schemes of reform,
all mature; but among you you've not let him bring in one of them.
The Duke and Mr. Mildmay and you will break his heart among you."

"Poor Mr. Palliser!"

"The truth is, if you don't take care he and Mr. Monk and Mr. Gresham
will arise and shake themselves, and turn you all out."

"We must look to ourselves, Lady Glencora."

"Indeed, yes;--or you will be known to all posterity as the faineant
government."

"Let me tell you, Lady Glencora, that a faineant government is not
the worst government that England can have. It has been the great
fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something."

"Mr. Mildmay is at any rate innocent of that charge," said Lady
Glencora.

They were now riding through a vast wood, and Phineas found himself
delightfully established by the side of Violet Effingham. "Mr. Ratler
has been explaining to me that he must have nineteen next session.
Now, if I were you, Mr. Finn, I would decline to be counted up in
that way as one of Mr. Ratler's sheep."

"But what am I to do?"

"Do something on your own hook. You men in Parliament are so much
like sheep! If one jumps at a gap, all go after him,--and then you
are penned into lobbies, and then you are fed, and then you are
fleeced. I wish I were in Parliament. I'd get up in the middle and
make such a spee