The Secretary's lodge in the Phoenix Park is somewhat of a pretty residence, and with its gardens, its shrubberies, and conservatory, seen on a summer's day when broad cloud-shadows lie sleeping on the Dublin mountains, and the fragrant white thorn scents the air, must certainly be a pleasant change from the din, the crush, and the turmoil of “town” at the fag end of a season. English officials call it damp. Indeed, they have a trick of ascribing this quality to all things Irish; and national energy, national common-sense, and national loyalty seem to them to be ever in a diluted form. Even our drollery is not as dry as our neighbors'. In this official residence Mr. Balfour was now installed, and while Fortune seemed to shower her favors so lavishly upon him, the _quid amarum_ was still there,--his tenure was insecure. The party to which he belonged had contrived to offend some of its followers and alienate others, and, without adopting any such decided line as might imply a change of policy, had excited a general sense of distrust in those who had once followed it implicitly. In the emergencies of party life, the manouvre known to soldiers as a “change of front” is often required. The present Cabinet were in this position. They had been for some sessions trading on their Protestantism. They had been Churchmen _pur sang_. Their bishops, their deans, their colonial appointments, had all been of that orthodox kind that defied slander; and as it is said that a man with a broad-brimmed hat and drab gaiters may indulge unsuspected in vices which a more smartly got-up neighbor would bring down reprobation upon his head for practising, so may a Ministry under the shadow of Exeter Hall do a variety of things denied to less sacred individuals. “The Protestant ticket” had carried them safely over two sessions, but there came now a hitch in which they needed that strange section called “the Irish party,” a sort of political flying column, sufficiently uncertain always to need watching, and if not very compact or highly disciplined, rash and bold enough to be very damaging in moments of difficulty. Now, as Private Secretary, Balfour had snubbed this party repeatedly. They had been passed over in promotion, and their claims to advancement coldly received. The amenities of the Castle--that social Paradise of all Irish men and women--had been denied them. For them were no dinners, no mornings at the Lodge, and great were the murmurs of discontent thereat. A change, however, had come; an English defection had rendered Irish support of consequence, and Balfour was sent over to, what in the slang of party is called, conciliate, but which, in less euphuistic phrase, might be termed to employ a system of general and outrageous corruption.