"Yes," I say, looking across at the Treasury Bench, where in the last weeks of July we were wont to see the kindly anxious face of OLD MORALITY, never more to cheer us with his little aphorisms, and incite to following his pathway of duty to his QUEEN and country. In his place, alert, youthful, strong, with ready smile breaking the unfamiliar gravity; of face and manner, sits the new Leader, still blushing under effect of ringing cheer that welcomed him to his high position. Lower down, filled up by another, is the place whence used frequently to arise a tall, almost gaunt, figure, which, with voice and manner indicating close associations with the Church pulpit, read from manuscript neatly-constructed answers designed to crush HENNIKER-HEATON. A kindly man and an able was RAIKES, who did not obtain full recognition for his administration of the office to which he was called. On the other side of the House a great gap is made by the withdrawal of PARNELL from the scene. A second, of quite other association, yawns where genial DICK POWER used to sit, and wonder what on earth he did in this galley, when he might have been riding to hounds in County Waterford. HARTINGTON gone, too, an unspeakable loss to gentlemen on the benches immediately behind. Many are the weary hours they have wiled away wondering whether, at the next backward jerk of the head of the sleeping statesman, his hat would tumble off, or whether catastrophe would be further postponed. In HARTINGTON's place sits CHAMBERLAIN, much too wide awake to afford opportunity for speculation on that or cognate circumstance. In his old corner-seat, in friendly contiguity, with his revered friend on the Treasury Bench, GRANDOLPH lounges contemplative. Met him earlier in afternoon. Passed us in corridor as I was talking to the MARKISS, who was anxious to know how the dinner went off last night, at which nephew ARTHUR appeared in character of the New Host at Downing Street. The MARKISS looked narrowly at GRANDOLPH as he passed with head hung down, tugging at his moustache. "You remember TOBY, what HEINE said of DE MUSSET? 'A young man with a great future--behind him.' There he goes." "Don't you believe it, my Lord," I said, with the frankness that endears me to the aristocracy. "You'll make a grave mistake if you act upon that view of GRANDOLPH's position." "Ah, well," said the MARKISS, a little hastily; "I must go and see STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL about this Portugal business." As he strode off I thought how precise and graphic remains Lord LYTTON's description of him, written before he came to the Premiership:-- "The large slouching shoulder, as oppressed By the prone head, habitually stoops Above a world his contemplative gaze Peruses, finding little there to praise." Sorry I vexed him.