It was Saturday and, as was his custom during the session, the Foreign Secretary had gone for privacy and rest till Monday to a small country house he had within easy reach of town.

I went down with a letter from Fox in my pocket, and early in the afternoon found myself talking without any kind of inward disturbance to the Minister's aunt, a lean, elderly lady, with a keen eye, and credited with a profound knowledge of European politics.

She had a rather abrupt manner and a business-like, brown scheme of coloration.

She looked people very straight in the face, bringing to bear all the penetration which, as rumour said, enabled her to take a hidden, but very real part in the shaping of our foreign policy.

She seemed to catalogue me, label me, and lay me on the shelf, before I had given my first answer to her first question.
"You ought to know this part of the country well," she said.