Many a day I have let him work up to the last possible moment, and then literally pulled off the old "cardigan" jacket he worked in, and forced him into his frock-coat for the House; and it happened more than once that he was due to attend a meeting in Ireland, and when I had packed his things and had the carriage at the door ready for him he would throw himself into a chair and with his slow, grave smile say, "You are in a hurry to get rid of me; I will not go yet. Sit down and let me look at you a bit, my Queen." I would protest that he must go, that he would lose the mail train. "Then I'll be no use at the meeting, for it will be over!" he would mockingly reply; and so, when the last possible chance of his being in time had vanished, he would sit opposite me through the evening talking of politics, Avondale, the assaying--of anything that came into his head always watching me with that intent, considering gaze that was my bewilderment and my joy. When he failed a meeting like this, where hundreds of people were waiting for him--or other appointments, private or public--I sometimes would want him to telegraph, or write, apologizing or excusing his non-attendance, but this he would never do, saying, "You do not learn the ethics of kingship, Queenie. Never explain, never apologize"; adding, with his rare laugh: "I could never keep my rabble together if I were not above the human weakness of apology." When Parnell came home from Ireland after these meetings he would sit smoking and watching me as I went through the pockets of the coats he had worn while away. It was a most interesting game, and he enjoyed it {103} as much as I when I brought out a new trophy from the depths of the deepest and most obvious side pocket. It was a point of honour that he should not "feel or look" till he got home to me, and I have a dear little collection of souvenirs now from these pockets--little medals with the images of various saints, scapulars and badges, slipped in by the deft, modest fingers of sweet-faced nuns, in the crowds, whose startled, deprecating blushes when he turned and caught the delinquent in the act always won a courteous bow and smile from the heretic "Chief" whose conversion their patriotic hearts so ardently desired. I found also odds and ends pressed upon him by the hero-worshipping peasants, some gruesome scrap of the rope that had hanged some unknown scamp and hero, so "aising to the bone-pains, an' his riv'rance not looking, a bit of a twisht roun' yer honour's arrm!" or perhaps a flattened old bullet that had gained some fancied power in its evil journey through a man's heart. Then there were the brand-new kerchiefs of most vivid green, most beautifully embroidered by the clever fingers of "herself," and so many four-leaved, and therefore "lucky," shamrocks from the "colleens," who went singing all the year if they thereby earned a smile from the Chief. Even the little children used to make