another mistake. If Mr. Supplehouse could have been induced to write in another strain, then indeed that new blood might have been felt to have been efficacious.
All this was a great drawback to his happiness, but still it could not rob him of the fact of his position. Lord Brock could not ask him to resign because the Jupiter had written against him; nor was Lord Brock the man to desert a new colleague for such a reason. So Harold Smith girded his loins, and went about the duties of the Petty Bag with new zeal. "Upon my word, the Jupiter is right," said young Robarts to himself, as he finished his fourth dozen of private notes explanatory of every thing in and about the Petty Bag Office. Harold Smith required that his private secretary's notes should be so terribly precise.
But, nevertheless, in spite of his drawbacks, Harold Smith was happy in his new honors, and Mrs. Harold Smith enjoyed them also. She certainly, among her acquaintance, did quiz the new cabinet minister not a little, and it may be a question whether she was not as hard upon him as the writer in the Jupiter. She whispered a great deal to Miss Dunstable about new blood, and talked of going down to Westminster Bridge to see whether the Thames were really on fire. But, though she laughed, she triumphed, and though she flattered herself that she bore her honors without any outward sign, the world knew that she was triumphing, and ridiculed her elation.
About this time she also gave a party—not a pure-minded conversazione like Mrs. Proudie, but a downright wicked worldly dance, at which there were fiddles, ices, and Champagne sufficient to run away with the first quarter's salary accruing to Harold from the Petty Bag Office. To us this ball is chiefly memorable from the fact that Lady Lufton was among the guests. Immediately on her arrival in town she received cards from Mrs. H. Smith for herself and Griselda, and was about to send back a reply at once declining the honor. What had she to do at the house of Mr. Sowerby's sister? But it so happened that at that moment her son was with her, and, as he expressed a wish that she should go, she yielded. Had there been nothing in his tone of persuasion more than ordinary—had it merely had reference to herself, she would have smiled on him for his kind solicitude, have made out some occasion for kissing his forehead as she thanked him, and would still
