Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based on a different footing.