full of love for those of her own household, but full also of interest in, and sympathy with, all other men and women. Upon her Forster lavished the love of his whole heart, and to her judgment he deferred more constantly than to that of any other person. It always seemed to me that their marriage was an ideal union, both of brain and heart. When I was writing his biography, I felt it necessary to say something about the peculiarities of his manner. Mrs. Forster objected to what I said, not on the ground that it hurt her feelings to remember those peculiarities, but because, in her opinion, they had never existed. "I do not understand what you mean by the peculiarities of his manner," she said to me one day. "His manner was always delightful, especially to women." This was the one point on which she was blind with regard to her husband. She did not see how great was the tribute paid to his sterling qualities by the fact that so many men loved him and honoured him in spite of his rough exterior. Often when I was with him I thought of Browning's line, "Do roses stick like burrs?" It was his very angularities that seemed to make Forster's friends cling to him so closely. In the years which followed his retirement from office he remained a thorough-going Liberal, but he claimed for himself the right of independent judgment as a member of his own party. The Ministry never got over the blow it received when he resigned. On the day of his resignation, when he left the Cabinet, Lord Selborne, who sympathised altogether with him, rose directly after he did, and said, "If Forster goes, I must go too." He was actually on his way to the door when someone--I believe Sir William Harcourt--following him threw his arms round him, and forcibly detained him till he was brought to a more docile state of mind.