Apart from weekly attendance at its meetings, Sir Charles did not go out much. 'We were so wrapped up in ourselves,' he says, 'that I have no doubt we were spoken of as selfish.' The marriage had resulted in a tie much closer than the simple union of two people who would "get on very well together." Lady Dilke was a creature of glowing life. Those who remember her say that when she entered a room the whole atmosphere seemed to change: she was so brilliant, so handsome, so charged with vitality, so eager always in everything. From this period there were dinners at 76, Sloane Street, twice a week, and among those who gathered about the Dilkes 'were Harcourt; Kinglake, the historian; Stopford Brooke (who had not then left the Church of England), Brookfield, the Queen's chaplain, commonly known as the "naughty parson," and husband of Thackeray's Amelia, Fitzmaurice; Charles Villiers; Mrs. Procter (widow of Barry Cornwall); Miss Tizy Smith, daughter of Horace Smith, of _Rejected Addresses_; James (afterwards Sir Henry James).' Browning also 'was constantly at the house,' and read there his "Red Cotton Nightcap Country"--'at his own request.' Lord Houghton began in these days an intimacy which lasted till his death. Of Americans, there were Leland ("Hans Breitmann") and Mark Twain, and with these are named a number of foreign guests: Émile de Laveleye, the economist; Ricciotti Garibaldi; Moret, the Spanish Minister. 'We used to judge the position of affairs in Spain by whether Moret wore or did not wear the Golden Fleece when he came to dinner. When Castelar was dictator and the Republic proceeding upon conservative lines, the sheep hung prominently at his side. When the Republic was federalist and democratic, as was the case from time to time, the sheep was left at home in a box.' Others in the list of guests were Taglioni, 'in her youth the famous dancer, and in her old age Comtesse Gilbert de Voisins, the stupidest and most respectable of old dames,' and Ristori, the tragedian, who stayed at Sloane Street 'with her husband, the Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and their lovely daughter Bianca.' A novel feature at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew France and the French tongue. Many painters were among the Chelsea constituents, and in 1868 Rossetti, having been pressed to vote, replied: "I think if Shakespeare and Michael Angelo were going to the poll, and if the one were not opposing the other, and if there were no danger of being expected to take an active part in the chairing of either, I might prove for once to have enough political electricity to brush a vote out of me, like a spark out of a cat's back. But I fear no other kind of earthly hero could do it."