It was quite true—with few exceptions besides Lord Beaconsfield, Lord George Hamilton and Mr. W. H. Smith, I hardly knew any of the Conservative leaders at all intimately. I had a slight acquaintance with them, but Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, Lord Malmesbury, and the other potentates of the party were to me little more than _magna nomina_. On the other hand, Lord Palmerston, Lord Granville, Lord Clarendon, Mr. Charles Villiers and many more Liberals were most kind friends to me, and I was much with them both in town and country. No great Conservative lady of my time had succeeded in having a _salon_. Lady Derby’s parties were of a dullness as depressing as a London fog; whereas the evenings at Lady Palmerston’s, Lady Clarendon’s, Lady Granville’s, were gatherings where whatever was most brilliant in politics, art, science, literature met together to be gay and merry. There would be repeated a new witticism of Alfred Montgomery, the last audacious sally of Quin or Bernal Osborne, the gossip of the Lobby, a happy Latin quotation by Bob Lowe, perhaps even some wicked little story from “behind the curtain.” I do not suppose that Lord Granville ever made a speech that could be called famous. He was not a master of oratory. But as a leader in the House of Lords he was gifted with a delightful manner, and a genius for conciliation which made him supremely popular with both friends and foes, and which gave him a very real power. In debate he was almost matchless. His playful cleverness of fence made him a foeman worthy of the nimblest steel that could be brought against him. I was not a member of the House of Lords in his time, but I used often to attend the debates, and I was always lost in admiration of his clever tactics, and of the masterly skill with which he could disarm an opponent without for one moment condescending to any departure from the strictest rules of the _salle d’armes_. His delicate sword-play was often more effective than the heavy artillery of such a born orator as the Duke of Argyll.