enjoy the other.

Lady Londonderry, it seems, is not yet well enough to cross the Channel;
but the Duchess of Marlborough, who is staying here with her nephew the
Lord-Lieutenant, has volunteered to assist him in holding the
Drawing-Room, whereupon a grave question has arisen in Court circles as
to whether the full meed of honours due to a Vice-Queen regnant ought to
be paid also to an ex-Vice-Queen. This is debated by the Dublin dames as
hotly as official women in Washington fight over the eternal question of
the relative precedence due to the wives of Senators and "Cabinet
Ministers." It will be a dark day for the democracy when women get the
suffrage--and use it.

At luncheon to-day I met the Attorney-General, Mr. O'Brien, who, with
prompt Irish hospitality, asked me to dine with him to-morrow night, and
Mr. Wilson of the London _Times_, an able writer on Irish questions from
the English point of view. Mr. Balfour, who was expected, did not
appear, being detained by guests at his own residence in the Park.

I went to see him in the afternoon at the Castle, and found him in
excellent spirits; certainly the mildest-mannered and most sensible
despot who ever trampled in the dust the liberties of a free people. He
was quite delightful about the abuse which is now daily heaped upon him
in speeches and in the press, and talked about it in a casual dreamy way
which reminded me irresistibly of President Lincoln, whom, if in nothing
else, he resembles alike in longanimity and in length of limb. He had
seen Davitt's _caveat_, filed at Rathkeale, against the foolishness of
trying to frighten him out of his line of country by calling him bad
names. "Davitt is quite right," he said, "the thing must be getting to
be a bore to the people, who are not such fools as the speakers take