At the outset of their married life, Gladstone gave his wife the choice: either to know nothing of the great matters of State in which he would be involved and so be entirely free of responsibility, or to know everything and be bound to secrecy. Needless to say, she chose the latter. Fifty years later Gladstone declared, “My wife has known every political secret I have ever had, and has never betrayed my confidence.” He became a Cabinet Minister in 1843 as President of the Board of Trade, and was six times Chancellor of the Exchequer and four times Prime Minister, so that his wife had ample opportunity for intimate acquaintance with State secrets, and for a corresponding exercise of discretion. It is related that once in the early days of Cabinet office she unwittingly said something that showed she had some important knowledge of a confidential nature. She was terribly upset and immediately sent Gladstone a little note of confession and penitence,--he was engaged at work in his study in Carlton House Terrace, where they were living,--to which her husband responded with ready forgiveness, saying, “It is the only little mistake you ever made.” Once she congratulated a man on his promotion before he knew anything about it himself, but no harm was done by that, and it only serves to prove how intimate was her knowledge of affairs. As a matter of fact, no one could ever extract anything from her, though many tried to do so. When she was asked what Gladstone was going to do in some crisis or other, she would answer with the greatest naïveté, “Well, I wonder, don’t you? What do you think he ought to do?” Some undiscerning persons attributed her manner to stupidity, but Mrs. Gladstone always knew what she was doing and saying, and why she did and said it. After the honeymoon, and a visit to Fasque, Kincardineshire (the home of Sir John Gladstone, where, so long as he lived, they spent some time each year), Gladstone and his wife when in London lived at 13 Carlton House Terrace, which he purchased in 1840. About six months after her marriage Mrs. Gladstone began to keep a fragmentary diary. Some extracts, printed here for the first time by kind permission of Mrs. Drew, form a record of her early married life, and illustrate her intelligent observation of the people around her, and her sense of humour. “_April 1840._--Dined at the Archbishop of York’s, meeting the Queen Dowager, also the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Lady Harrington, etc. The Queen heard me speak of some one who was ill, and asked me all about it when we came upstairs. She beckoned to me to sit down by her. The Duchess of Cambridge very kind and talkative to me, speaking of our marriage at Hawarden, Mary’s and mine, upon the same day, and the Queen joined in the conversation and also talked to William.