Good-bye!" and he left me with an impression that he wanted to vote for both candidates. There was a little shopping I had to do in Regent Street, after I had left my costume at the Academy, and I called in at Mudie's for a moment on my way to the British Museum. To give you an idea of the mental disturbance I was suffering from, I asked the very polite young man at the counter for my own _Mayors of Woodshire_--you know, my seventeenth-century book--instead of _The Mayor of Casterbridge_, which my wife wanted to read. I did not realise my mistake till I saw the imprint of the Clarendon Press. At last I got to the manuscript room, made my references, and found that our early dinner hour was approaching. I walked westward down Oxford Street, enjoying the animation and colour of the lovely evening, and then, suddenly, realising what the hour was, turned and took a hansom to the Athenæum. Who should meet me in the vestibule but Seeley? Less and less often do I find my way to Cambridge, and I hesitated about addressing him, although I used to know him so well. He was buried in a reverie, and slowly moving to the steps. I suppose I involuntarily slackened my speed also, and he looked up. He was most cordial, and almost immediately began to talk to me about those notes on the commercial relations of the Woodshire ports with Poland which I printed in the _English Historical_ two (or perhaps three) years ago. I daresay you never heard of them. I promised to send him some transcripts I have since made of the harbour laws of Luxilian itself--most important. I longed to ask Seeley whether we might be sure of his support for Gardiner, but I hardly liked to do so, he seemed so much more absorbed in the past. I took for granted it was all right, and when we parted, as he left the Club, he said, "We meet later on this evening, I suppose?" and that was his only reference to the election. I am hardly at home yet at the Athenæum, and I was therefore delighted to put myself under Lecky's wing. I soon saw that quite a muster of Academicians was preparing to dine, for when we entered the Coffee Room we found Mr. Walter Besant already seated, and before we could join him Mr. Black and Mr. Herbert Spencer came in together and approached us. We had two small tables placed together, and just as we were sitting down, Lord Lytton, who was so extremely kind to me in Paris last autumn when I left my umbrella in the Eiffel Tower, made his appearance. We all seemed studiously to make no reference, at first, to the great event of the day, while Mr. Spencer diverted us with several anecdotes which he had just brought from a family in the country--not at all, of course, of a puerile description, but throwing a singular light upon the development of infant mind. After this the conversation flagged a little. I suppose we were all thinking of the same thing. I was quite relieved when a remark of Lecky's introduced the general topic.