Sir Charles had declined to attend the meeting, but before it took place the matter was arranged. 'At one moment, after a fiasco by Mr. Bright at Birmingham, it had looked as though Forster might win, in spite of Chamberlain and the Nonconformists. Although James professed Harcourt's indifference in the matter, Harcourt and James were both, as a fact, for Hartington. Harcourt had conceived a strong feeling against Fawcett immediately before this, in January, for trying to keep Mr. Gladstone as the leader, a course to which Harcourt was bitterly opposed....' In these years Sir William Harcourt, then a widower devoted to his one boy, stood nearer to Sir Charles than any other of his English friends. Dilke wrote to him: "How little credit you get for your heart! How few people know you have one!" 'In this month of February, 1875,' he goes on to say, 'I revived an acquaintance which had slumbered for thirteen years, but was destined not again to drop.' Account has already been given of Sir Charles's boyish friendship with Emilia Strong, a brilliant girl three years his elder. In 1861 she had married Mark Pattison, the Rector of Lincoln College, and from that time onward Dilke, although he had seen something of the famous scholar, her husband, had scarcely met Mrs. Pattison, as she seldom came to London, and he at that time never went to Oxford. Now, in 1875, she was staying with her husband in Gower Street, under the roof of Sir Charles Newton, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, and was gradually becoming convalescent after a terrible attack of gout, which had left both her arms useless for many months. During this time they were strapped to her sides, and she had to invent a machine to turn over the pages of her book. But the bracing influence of her mind on those around her was unimpaired. In the years which followed, the habit of correspondence grew up between them, strengthening, until at any important crisis in his political life it became natural to him to consult her or take her into his confidence. We have also at this moment reference to the beginnings of an acquaintance with a remarkable opponent. Sir Charles notes that at Easter, 1875, when crossing to France, he met Lord Randolph Churchill, already known to him in the House, who expressed a wish to be presented to Gambetta. The meeting was a success, and Gambetta, delighted with his talk, asked him to breakfast along with Dilke, fixing the hour at noon; but later there came this note: "MON CHER AMI, "Je vous prie en grâce de vouloir bien avancer notre déjeuner au Café Anglais et de prévenir votre ami de ce petit dérangement. L'enterrement d'Edgar Quinet doit avoir lieu à une heure à Montparnasse et je ne peux manquer à cette cérémonie. Donc à demain lundi 11h au Caf. Anglais. "Votre toujours dévoué, "LEON GAMBETTA."