"It is so strange not to have you here this evening--not to be able to talk over with you all these anxieties and trials. I can't help being a little angry with Sir James. We are the oldest friends. "Of course I have often been anxious lately lest Oliver should have done anything to offend you. I have spoken to him about that tiresome meeting, and I think I could prove to you it was _not_ his fault. Do, my dear friend, come here as soon as you can, and let me explain to you whatever may have seemed wrong. You cannot think how much we miss you. I feel it a little hard that there should be strangers here this evening--like Mr. Lankester and Mr. Barrington. But it could not be helped. Mr. Lankester was speaking for Oliver last night--and Mr. Barrington invited himself. I really don't know why. Oliver is dreadfully tired--and so am I. The ingratitude and ill-feeling of many of our neighbors has tried me sorely. It will be a long time before I forget it. It really seems as though nothing were worth striving for in this very difficult world." "Poor Lucy!" said Ferrier to himself, his heart softening, as usual. "Barrington? H'm. That's odd." He had only time for a short reply: "My dear Lady Lucy,--It's horrid that you are tired and depressed. I wish I could come and cheer you up. Politics are a cursed trade. But never mind, Oliver is safely in, and as soon as the Government is formed, I will come to Tallyn, and we will laugh at these woes. I can't write at greater length now, for Broadstone has just summoned me. You will have seen that he went to Windsor this morning. Now the agony begins. Let's hope it may be decently short. I am just off for town. "Yours ever, John Ferrier." Two days passed--three days--and still the "agony" lasted. Lord Broadstone's house in Portman Square was besieged all day by anxious journalists watching the goings and comings of a Cabinet in the making. But nothing could be communicated to the newspapers--nothing, in fact, was settled. Envoys went backward and forward to Lord Philip in Northamptonshire. Urgent telegrams invited him to London. He took no notice of the telegrams; he did not invite the envoys, and when they came he had little or nothing of interest to say to them. Lord Broadstone, he declared, was fully in possession of his views. He had nothing more to add. And, indeed, a short note from him laid by in the new Premier's pocket-book was, if the truth were known, the _fons et origo_ of all Lord Broadstone's difficulties.