use of Lords with small opposition.

It was whispered as well that Pitt himself was afraid of his Grace of
Borthwicke, and was no match for the man, who had a peculiar power by
reason of being unhampered either by truth or precedent. Blake, who was
the duke's secretary in '84, told me at the club one night, that on one
occasion his grace had needed some statistics to clinch an argument.
After investigation the statistics were found to disprove his point.
Upon this being presented to him, he remarked dryly, "Alter the
statistics."

Ugly tales were abroad in all classes of society concerning his life in
India, his conduct in the Highlands, and his moral idiocy, but he held
them under with a strong hand, and more than one hinted that he had
eyes for the premiership.

Dressed for the evening, the duke was alone in his sitting-room,
attending to his private correspondence, when he heard a rap at the
door.

"Enter," he called, in a careless voice, thinking it one of his men.

Nancy lifted the latch and came forward into the room.

"The Duke of Borthwicke will pardon my intrusion, will he not?" she
asked, "as well as my lack of courtesy? I was afraid his grace might
refuse to see me if I were announced to him in the ordinary manner."

Montrose had been writing at an oaken table, on either side of which
was a bracket of lights. At the sound of the voice he turned, and, at
the sight of Nancy, he rose and stood looking at her as though she were
an apparition.

Many times since, in her description of this interview, she told me
that she received from him an impression as though he stretched forth
his hand and touched her. She said, as well, that the erectness of his
body and the fulness of his chest gave him the air of a conqueror who
was invincible, while the pallor of his face and the glitter of his eye
set him still further apart from anything usual.

It seemed a full minute that they stood thus taking notes openly of
each other before she spoke again.

"I am Nancy Stair," she said quietly.

"Ah," the duke returned, coming forward with a smile, "the
verse-maker?"

"I make verses," Nancy answered.

"Which have given me more pleasure than I have the power to tell," the
duke responded with a bow.

"It is praise indeed, coming from John Montrose, who is no mean poet
himself," Nancy said with a smile.

"I," the duke returned, "am no poet, Mistress Stair; but I have a
'spunk enough of glee' to enjoy the gift of ot