CHAPTER VIII.
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM.
[Sidenote: Still holiday-making.] The Easter holidays were slow in coming to an end.

People who were fortunate enough to obtain pairs, lingered by the seaside or in the country house.

Others were busy with the work which the recess now imposes as much as in the most feverish Parliamentary times on leading political men.

Mr.Balfour was away in Ireland, among the Orangemen of Ulster and the Loyalists of Dublin; Lord Randolph Churchill was at Liverpool making silly and violent speeches; Mr.Chamberlain was _colloguing_--to use an excellent Irish phrase--with the publicans of the Midlands.

The Irish were especially conspicuous by the smallness of their attendance.