If PETER were with us to-day, it is probable that even his effervescence of natural spirits would droop under prevalent gloom.  The familiar place is a House of Mourning.  Members tread softly, lest they should disturb the sick or wake the dead.  Everyone has had the influenza, fears he is going to catch it, or mourns someone whom it has snatched away.

When SPEAKER took Chair and business commenced, a glance round crowded benches brought back memory of much that has happened in the Recess.

“’Tis not alone this inky cloak, good TOBY, worn in sign of public mourning,” said WILFRID LAWSON, strangely subdued; “the House of Commons has had its losses.”

“Yes,” I say, looking across at the Treasury Bench, where in the last weeks of July we were wont to see the kindly anxious face of OLD MORALITY, never more to cheer us with his little aphorisms, and incite to following his pathway of duty to his QUEEN and country.  In his place, alert, youthful, strong, with ready smile breaking the unfamiliar gravity; of face and manner, sits the new Leader, still blushing under effect of ringing cheer that welcomed him to his high position.

Lower down, filled up by another, is the place whence used frequently to arise a tall, almost gaunt, figure, which, with voice and manner indicating close associations with the Church pulpit, read from manuscript neatly-constructed answers designed to crush HENNIKER-HEATON.  A kindly man and an able was RAIKES, who did not obtain full recognition for his administration of the office to which he was called.

On the other side of the House a great gap is made by the withdrawal of PARNELL from the scene.  A second, of quite other association, yawns where genial DICK POWER used to sit, and wonder what on earth he did in this galley, when he might have been riding to hounds in County Waterford.  HARTINGTON gone, too, an unspeakable loss to gentlemen on the benches immediately behind.  Many are the weary hours they have wiled away wondering whether, at the next backward jerk of the head of the sleeping statesman, his hat would tumble off, or whether catastrophe would be further postponed.  In HARTINGTON’s place sits CHAMBERLAIN, much too wide awake to afford opportunity for speculation on that or cognate circumstance.

In his old corner-seat, in friendly contiguity, with his revered friend on the Treasury Bench, GRANDOLPH lounges contemplative.  Met him earlier in afternoon.  Passed us in corridor as I was talking to the MARKISS, who was anxious to know how the dinner went off last night, at which nephew ARTHUR appeared in character of the New Host at Downing Street.  The MARKISS looked narrowly at GRANDOLPH as he passed with head hung down, tugging at his moustache.

“You remember TOBY, what HEINE said of DE MUSSET?  ’A young man with a great future—­behind him.’  There he goes.”

“Don’t you believe it, my Lord,” I said, with the frankness that endears me to the aristocracy.  “You’ll make a grave mistake if you act upon that view of GRANDOLPH’s position.”