A great wish of Willie's was to be appointed Under-secretary for Ireland. I had on various occasions made the suggestion to Mr. Gladstone, but without successful issue. Gladstone had a perfect manner of refusing appointments when personally asked for them; it was always an apparent pain to him; nothing but the knowledge of his duty restrained him from interference, and though I was not really anxious that Willie should receive this appointment I was willing to please him by asking for it, and it might have excited suspicion if I had not asked. I must admit that Mr. Gladstone never to my knowledge of him all those years made an appointment from motives of private favour. Here once more, when he wrote regretting he couldn't poach on his colleagues' patronage preserves, his manners were perfect. On May 8th an urgent letter from Gladstone at Downing Street was delivered at my house. Mr. Morley had lost track of Mr. Parnell, and wanted to know where he was. It was apparently the most natural thing in the world to ask me where was Parnell. A form of Government telegram was enclosed for my reply. In view of the fact that Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were so pained, surprised, and properly shocked when Mr. Parnell was publicly arraigned as my lover, the frantic way in which they applied to me, when they were {200} unable to find him, was, afterwards, a source of considerable amusement to us both. From the time of my first interview with Mr. Gladstone onwards, no time was lost in "failing to trace him here" before hurried application was made to me at my--and Parnell's--permanent address. I did not choose that the Irish Party should have his private address--nor did Parnell choose it--but I was most particular that the Government should know it. Governments--especially Liberal Governments--are before all things simple-minded and of childlike guilelessness. I remember when on one occasion the Government desired to know Parnell's views on certain matters before elaborating a Bill shortly to go before the House, a special messenger was sent to Eltham with a letter. I had gone to the seaside with my children, and my servants had standing orders that they knew nothing of Mr. Parnell or of his whereabouts. So the nonplussed Governmental messenger meditated upon my doorstep for one moment only, then, armed with "_Mrs. O'Shea's address_" at Hastings, came straight on to receive Mr. Parnell's reply, and safely deliver it within the stipulated time. But there can be no doubt, of course, that Mr. Gladstone's "Poor fellow, poor fellow, what a terrible fall," subsequent to the hounding, at his word, of his gallant opponent to death by the Irish sycophants, alluded to the breaking of the eleventh commandment of social life: "Thou shalt not be found out" (publicly), rather than to the seventh of orthodox Christianity.