Our last diplomatic scandal relates to Victoria’s new protégé, the English “envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary,” the Hon. Lionel Sackville-West. If he were not Victoria’s “Knight of the Garter,” it would not be so sad. Now it appears that when Lionel went to Spain as a young attaché he became desperately enamored with a ballet-dancer. “He loved not wisely, but too well.” The proud Sackville-Wests would have none of it. They declare to this day that Lionel is a bachelor Simon pure, and so he is inscribed on the awful book of the peerage. It is not understood whether the ballet-dancer has put on angel plumage, but it is known that she left a brood of little chick Sackville-Wests, which the Honorable Lionel is willing to gather under his wings as a hen doth her chickens. His eldest daughter is with him--his acknowledged child--and here lies all the trouble. If he would only ignore her, or wait, as the Peruvian minister did, till he hears the toot of the last trump, Victoria and “Washington society” would wink at his little “escapades.” But the British minister shows that he has a will of his own and a mind of his own, with the Prince of Wales to stand between him and his virtuous sovereign. The capital is becoming alive with men who manage to elude the snares of matrimony, whilst the foreign legations--words fail not because the source is exhausted, but newspaper articles must come to an end. OLIVIA. CLOSING SCENES IN THE HOUSE. PEN PICTURES OF BLACKBURN, GARFIELD, RANDALL AND LESSER LIGHTS. WASHINGTON, _March 4, 1879_. Prematurely crushed before half its most important work was performed, the Forty-fifth Congress of the Republic has ceased to live. Its dying hours were marked with scenes of almost riotous confusion, reminding one of the exciting days of “secession times.” It is only when each great party has almost an equal number of combatants in Congress that a hand-to-hand battle takes place. To-day the men whose official career ends for the present in the House were the plumed leaders in the strife. In the advance were Foster, of Ohio; Hale, of Maine, and Durham, of Kentucky. To carry out the idea of death, flowers were strewn on the desks of departing members, and on the Speaker’s table uprose a pyramid of floral display. Not an inch of standing room was visible. Even the diplomatic gallery contained an unusual number of distinguished foreigners, whilst that part designated as the “members’ gallery” was crowded to overflowing by the acknowledged leaders of the social world of which politics make a part.