Sir Orlando of course saw all these articles, and in his very heart believed that a man had at length sprung up among them fit to conduct a newspaper. The Duke also unfortunately saw the "People's Banner." In his old happy days two papers a day, one in the morning and the other before dinner, sufficed to tell him all that he wanted to know. Now he felt it necessary to see almost every rag that was published. And he would skim through them all till he found the lines in which he himself was maligned, and then, with sore heart and irritated nerves, would pause over every contumelious word. He would have bitten his tongue out rather than have spoken of the tortures he endured, but he was tortured and did endure. He knew the cause of the bitter personal attacks made on him,--of the abuse with which he was loaded, and of the ridicule, infinitely more painful to him, with which his wife's social splendour was bespattered. He remembered well the attempt which Mr. Quintus Slide had made to obtain an entrance into his house, and his own scornful rejection of that gentleman's overtures. He knew,--no man knew better,--the real value of that able Editor's opinion. And yet every word of it was gall and wormwood to him. In every paragraph there was a scourge which hit him on the raw and opened wounds which he could show to no kind surgeon, for which he could find solace in no friendly treatment. Not even to his wife could he condescend to say that Mr. Quintus Slide had hurt him. Then Sir Orlando had come himself. Sir Orlando explained himself gracefully. He of course could understand that no gentleman had a right to complain because he was not asked to another gentleman's house. But the affairs of the country were above private considerations; and he, actuated by public feelings, would condescend to do that which under other circumstances would be impossible. The public press, which was ever vigilant, had suggested that there was some official estrangement, because he, Sir Orlando, had not been included in the list of guests invited by his Grace. Did not his Grace think that there might be seeds of,--he would not quite say decay for the Coalition, in such a state of things? The Duke paused a moment, and then said that he thought there were no such seeds. Sir Orlando bowed haughtily and withdrew--swearing at the moment that the Coalition should be made to fall into a thousand shivers. This had all taken place a fortnight before the party at the Horns from which poor Mrs. Lopez had been withdrawn so hastily.