"That's all very well;--but I had, and he knew it. As for the future, of course, the thing is over. But you have done everything for the borough." "You mean that the borough has done much for me." "I know what I mean very well;--and I shall take it very ill if a shilling out of the Castle ever goes into Mr. Sprout's pocket again." It is needless to trouble the reader at length with the sermon which he preached her on the occasion,--showing the utter corruption which must come from the mixing up of politics with trade, or with the scorn which she threw into the few words with which she interrupted him from time to time. "Whether a man makes good shoes, and at a reasonable price, and charges for them honestly,--that is what you have to consider," said the Duke impressively. "I'd rather pay double for bad shoes to a man who did not thwart me." "You should not condescend to be thwarted in such a matter. You lower yourself by admitting such a feeling." And yet he writhed himself under the lashes of Mr. Slide! "I know an enemy when I see him," said the Duchess, "and as long as I live I'll treat an enemy as an enemy." There was ever so much of it, in the course of which the Duke declared his purpose of sending at once to Mr. Sprout for ever so many cork soles, and the Duchess,--most imprudently,--declared her purpose of ruining Mr. Sprout. There was something in this threat which grated terribly against the Duke's sense of honour;--that his wife should threaten to ruin a poor tradesman, that she should do so in reference to the political affairs of the borough which he all but owned,--that she should do so in declared opposition to him! Of course he ought to have known that her sin consisted simply in her determination to vex him at the moment. A more good-natured woman did not live;--or one less prone to ruin any one. But any reference to the Silverbridge election brought back upon him the remembrance of the cruel attacks which had been made upon him, and rendered him for the time moody, morose, and wretched. So they again parted ill friends, and hardly spoke when they met at dinner. The next morning there reached Matching a letter which greatly added to his bitterness of spirit against the world in general and against her in particular. The letter, though marked "private," had been opened, as were all his letters, by Mr. Warburton, but the private Secretary thought it necessary to show the letter to the Prime Minister. He, when he had read it, told Warburton that it did not signify, and maintained for half-an-hour an attitude of quiescence. Then he walked forth, having the letter hidden in his hand, and finding his wife alone, gave it her to read. "See what you have brought upon me," he said, "by your interference and disobedience." The letter was as follows:-- Manchester Square, August 3, 187--. MY LORD DUKE,