On the night of the day that the Brothers Steamship Company was floated she had arranged a dinner-table at her house which is destined to live down through time. There was a great Cabinet Minister present, who, as the chief guest, took her down to dinner; and there was also in the room the Ambassador from one of the greater Continental Courts, with whom the Minister had, after dinner, ten minutes of quiet, informal talk in the corner of the drawing-room. That talk laid the groundwork of a certain international agreement, afterwards elaborated, which has never yet been made public. But some day it will be sprung upon Europe with a crash, and a whirlwind of wonder; and then the papers will refer to Mrs. Theodore Shelf’s dinner-table as a manufactory of history. Be it confessed, however, that Mrs. Shelf had not asked the two to meet through any high-minded wish to better the Empire. She was singularly untrammeled by patriotism of that variety. The principal Power whose betterment she had at heart was the House of Shelf, as consisting of husband and self; and when she sat down at the head of her table, and watched the great Minister next her unfold his napkin, she made up her mind to do great deeds that night. She did not rush headlong to the attack. She had prepared her ground skilfully, and knew how to play her game with due deliberation. On the other side of the Minister was Amy Rivers—a bright, sprightly personage, of whom he was extremely fond, and to whose conversation his hostess cleverly dismissed him before they were halfway through the _hors d’œuvres_. Oysters _à la Sibérienne_ followed, and as the great man was selecting the plump natives he fancied from their tray of ice, he turned round to Mrs. Shelf, as though to engage in talk with her. But her time was not yet ripe. The Minister was a professed _gourmet_, and the wines that night were the best the world could produce. Theodore Shelf made no objection to these. He professed to abstain from wines himself, but he provided them for others, as he did billiards. And Mrs. Shelf trusted that the glorious vintages would sweep the austerity from the Minister’s soul. The Minister sipped his Chablis, and his eye kindled. “I shouldn’t like,” he said to Amy Rivers, “to be a poor man, and not know people, and not go out anywhere. The sweets of life are its pleasant surprises. That’s the best wine of its name in England this minute.” “I am not,” replied Miss Rivers, “going to talk food with you. If you want that, you must shout down the table at Mr. Shelf.” “Oh, youth, youth!” said the Minister, “how much you miss! At one time I thought Dublin porter an excellent tipple to drink with my oysters; and as for you, my dear, you don’t trouble your head about it at all. I used to think I’d like to marry you, supposing Heaven made me single again. But now——” “Now, I suppose, I shall have to put up with Hamilton Fairfax, as arranged. Well, there are worse fates.”