thing in a manner which they who best knew her would have thought
to be very unusual with her. She already possessed all that rank
and wealth could give her, and together with those good things a
peculiar position of her own, of which she was proud, and which
she had made her own not by her wealth and rank, but by a certain
fearless energy and power of raillery which never deserted her.
Many feared her, and she was afraid of none, and many also loved
her,--whom she also loved, for her nature was affectionate. She
was happy with her children, happy with her friends, in the
enjoyment of perfect health, and capable of taking an exaggerated
interest in anything that might come uppermost for the moment.
One would have been inclined to say that politics were altogether
unnecessary to her, and that as Duchess of Omnium, lately known
as Lady Glencora Palliser, she had a wider and pleasanter
influence than could belong to any woman as wife of a Prime
Minister. And she was essentially one of those women who are not
contented to be known simply as the wives of their husbands. She
had a celebrity of her own, quite independent of his position,
and which could not be enhanced by any glory or any power added
to him. Nevertheless, when he left her to go down to the Queen
with the prospect of being called upon to act as chief of the
incoming ministry, her heart throbbed with excitement. It had
come at last, and he would be, to her thinking, the leading man
in the greatest kingdom in the world.

But she felt in regard to him somewhat as did Lady Macbeth
towards her lord.

What thou would'st highly,
That would'st thou holily.