There were a great many people there that night. A large group was on the hearthrug. I am tall, and looking over the heads of the assembly I saw the Prince Consort standing there. He was smiling, still rather nervously, and was talking in quick eager tones. Everyone listened in deferential silence, broken by murmurs of “Yes, yes,” or “How true!” or “I never thought of that!” And Muriel held the Prince Consort’s hand, and looked up at him with adoration in her young eyes. I rejoiced with the Prince Consort in his hour of deserved triumph, but I did not, somehow, find Muriel as “pretty a picture” as a lady told me later on that she was. Indeed, I thought that the child would have been as well--or better--in bed. I turned round and looked for Mrs Clinton. Ah, there she was, on her usual sofa. By her side sat Lady Troughton; nobody else was near. Mrs Clinton was talking very quickly and vivaciously to her companion, who rose as I approached, gave me her hand, and then passed on to join the group on the hearthrug. I sat down by Mrs Clinton, and began to congratulate her on her husband’s marvellous triumph. “Yes,” said she, “do you see he’s in both the quarterlies?” I said that such a tribute was only natural. “And it’s selling wonderfully too,” she went on. “You may imagine how much obliged Vincents’ are to me for sending him there!” “Did you know he was doing it?” I asked. “Oh, I knew he was working at something. Muriel used to be always chaffing him about it.” “She doesn’t chaff him now, I should think.” “No,” said Mrs Clinton, twisting a ring on her finger round and round. Suddenly the group opened, and the Prince Consort came through, leading Muriel by the hand. He marched across the room, followed by his admirers. I rose, and he stood close by his wife, and began to talk about her last novel. He said that it was wonderfully clever, and told us all to get it and read it. Everybody murmured that such was their intention, and a lady observed: “How charming for you to be able to provide your husband with recreation, Mrs Clinton!” “Papa doesn’t care about novels much, really,” said Muriel. “You do, I suppose, young lady?” asked someone. “I like papa’s book better,” the child answered, and we all laughed, Mrs Clinton leading the chorus with almost exaggerated heartiness. And then an enthusiastic woman must needs see where Mr Thompson Clinton (the Prince Consort bid fair to be double-barrelled before long) worked. She would take no denial, and at last Mrs Clinton rose, and, in spite of her husband’s protests, led the way to the study. I had been in the room a little while before I went abroad. It was much changed now. A row of Mrs Clinton’s novels, indeed, still stood on the top of the whatnot, but her “litter” (it had been her own playful name for her manuscripts and other properties) had vanished. Large, fat, solemn books, Blue-books, books of science, of statistics, and other horrors dominated the scene.