“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “A mutual friend, a Mr. Airlie, happened to be of the party, and he mentioned you.” “It isn’t as terrible as you think,” she said. “Many men who have risen and taken a high place in the world were married to kind, good women unable to share their greatness. There was Shakespeare, you know, who married Anne Hathaway and had a clever daughter. She was just a nice, homely body a few years older than himself. And he seems to have been very fond of her; and was always running down to Stratford to be with her.”!

Poor Robert! It would be hard on him, too. She could not help feeling consolation in the thought that he also would be wearing that invisible crown. “It doesn’t read quite the same,” he answered. “Phillips goes home under the impression that he has made a great success and has roused the country. He and millions of other readers learn from the next morning’s headlines that it was ‘A Tame Speech’ that he made. What sounded to him ‘Loud Cheers’ have sunk to mild ‘Hear, Hears.’ That five minutes’ hurricane of applause, during which wildly excited men and women leapt upon the benches and roared themselves hoarse, and which he felt had settled the whole question, he searches for in vain. A few silly interjections, probably pre-arranged by Carleton’s young lions, become ‘renewed interruptions.’ The report is strictly truthful; but the impression produced is that Robert Phillips has failed to carry even his own people with him. And then follow leaders in fourteen widely-circulated Dailies, stretching from the Clyde to the Severn, foretelling how Mr. Robert Phillips could regain his waning popularity by the simple process of adopting Tariff Reform: or whatever the pet panacea of Carleton and Co. may, at the moment, happen to be.”

“’Orrible murder of a woman. Shockin’ details. Speshul,” repeating it over and over again in a hoarse, expressionless monotone. “My first public appearance,” explained Mrs. Denton. “I teased my father into taking me with him. We represented Great Britain and Ireland. I suppose I’m the only one left.” Mary’s hand gave Joan’s a little squeeze. “You won’t mind if anybody drops in?” she said. “They do sometimes of a Sunday evening.”