“The visitors were so eager for the frivol that they arrived before schedule time (3.30). Motors and carriages were politely dissuaded from entering the gates, while Aides peeped unhappily round the pillars of the veranda, and sent agonized messages upstairs. But the Carmichaels were getting into party duds as fast as they could. They had been opening the motor-drive out to Toorak at 2.30, and the lady’s return home and quick change into a dream of a lilac gown had all to be compressed into the one brief hour. When at last the pair came out, the dress—a trailing circumstance of nonchalant coolness—was received with murmurs of admiration. Someone has been redrawing the lines of the Carmichael lady’s figure; it has the new slenderness necessary for the new dressing.” The ideal Governor’s wife must be of the bluest possible blood—nothing insults a democratic country like playing down to it in the matter of nobodies—and yet she must forget all the class distinctions she has ever known. She must remember everybody, entertain royally, and spend lavishly. There was once a superlatively mean Governor, with a superlatively mean wife, in Victoria, and they will never be forgotten; it is a fault that the people here are not prone to themselves, and which they simply will not tolerate in those whom they consider handsomely paid to cut a dash. I never saw but one public-house called after that particular Governor, and this, in itself, is significant—besides, even it is in a mean back street. When the Ministry finds it is unable to disentangle itself, when it has not a proper working majority, or is defeated on any matter which it considers vital, then the Premier, instead of tendering his resignation and asking the Governor to “send for” a leading member of the Opposition—as would be the case were he defeated in Parliament or at the polls—asks the Governor for a dissolution, the terms of which are very carefully dictated to him, though at other times he acts mainly on the advice of the Executive Council. In the Executive Council there are eight salaried Ministers. Four at least of these must always be members of the Council or Assembly, but not more than two of the Council or six of the Assembly; while upon accepting office a Minister vacates his seat in Parliament, though he may return to it without being re-elected. The Council—or Upper House—consists of thirty-four members, being divided into seventeen electoral provinces, each of which returns two members. The member of each electorate who receives the largest number of votes retains his seat for six years, if there is no General Election, the other members retiring after three years.