I have heard nothing about that yet. I am a little sorry about Lord
Dudley, as I think they have drawn him into their mesh; but as for the
other three, especially Huskisson and Lord Palmerston, I can tell you
the Duke has never had a quiet moment since they joined him. We shall
now begin to reign. The only mistake was ever to have admitted them. I
think now we have got rid of Liberalism for ever."



CHAPTER VI

Mr. Ferrars did not become a cabinet minister, but this was a vexation
rather than a disappointment, and transient. The unexpected vacancies
were filled by unexpected personages. So great a change in the frame
of the ministry, without any promotion for himself, was on the first
impression not agreeable, but reflection and the sanguine wisdom of
Zenobia soon convinced him that all was for the best, that the thought
of such rapid preferment was unreasonable, and that time and the due
season must inevitably bring all that he could desire, especially as
any term to the duration of the ministry was not now to be foreseen:
scarcely indeed possible. In short, it was shown to him that the
Tory party, renovated and restored, had entered upon a new lease of
authority, which would stamp its character on the remainder of the
nineteenth century, as Mr. Pitt and his school had marked its earlier
and memorable years.

And yet this very reconstruction of the government necessarily led to
an incident which, in its consequences, changed the whole character of
English politics, and commenced a series of revolutions which has not
yet closed.