Ministry, even by a lordship of the Treasury. Carr Vipont had therefore
summoned the patriotic and resentful kindred.

It is an hour or so after the conclusion of dinner. The gentlemen have
joined the ladies in the state suite, a suite which the last Marquess had
rearranged and redecorated in his old age, during the long illness that
finally conducted him to his ancestors. During his earlier years that
princely Marquess had deserted Montfort Court for a seat nearer to
London, and therefore much more easily filled with that brilliant society
of which he had been long the ornament and centre,--railways not then
existing for the annihilation of time and space, and a journey to a
northern county four days with posthorses making the invitations even of
a Marquess of Montfort unalluring to languid beauties and gouty
ministers. But nearing the end of his worldly career, this long neglect
of the dwelling identified with his hereditary titles smote the
conscience of the illustrious sinner. And other occupations beginning to
pall, his lordship, accompanied and cheered by a chaplain, who had a fine
taste in the decorative arts, came resolutely to Montfort Court; and
there, surrounded with architects and gilders and upholsterers, redeemed
his errors; and, soothed by the reflection of the palace provided for his
successor, added to his vaults--a coffin.

The suite expands before the eye. You are in the grand drawing-room,
copied from that of Versailles. That is the picture, full length, of the
late Marquess in his robes; its pendant is the late Marchioness, his
wife. That table of malachite is a present from the Russian Emperor
Alexander; that vase of Sevres which rests on it was made for Marie
Antoinette,--see her portrait enamelled in its centre. Through the
open door at the far end your eye loses itself in a vista of other
pompous chambers,--the music-room, the statue hall, the orangery; other