On that one day there was a great riding party made up, and Phineas found himself mounted, after luncheon, with some dozen other equestrians.  Among them were Miss Effingham and Lady Glencora, Mr. Ratler and the Earl of Brentford himself.  Lady Glencora, whose husband was, as has been said, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who was still a young woman, and a very pretty woman, had taken lately very strongly to politics, which she discussed among men and women of both parties with something more than ordinary audacity.  “What a nice, happy, lazy time you’ve had of it since you’ve been in,” said she to the Earl.

“I hope we have been more happy than lazy,” said the Earl.

“But you’ve done nothing.  Mr. Palliser has twenty schemes of reform, all mature; but among you you’ve not let him bring in one of them.  The Duke and Mr. Mildmay and you will break his heart among you.”

“Poor Mr. Palliser!”

“The truth is, if you don’t take care he and Mr. Monk and Mr. Gresham will arise and shake themselves, and turn you all out.”

“We must look to ourselves, Lady Glencora.”

“Indeed, yes;—­or you will be known to all posterity as the faineant government.”

“Let me tell you, Lady Glencora, that a faineant government is not the worst government that England can have.  It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.”

“Mr. Mildmay is at any rate innocent of that charge,” said Lady Glencora.

They were now riding through a vast wood, and Phineas found himself delightfully established by the side of Violet Effingham.  “Mr. Ratler has been explaining to me that he must have nineteen next session.  Now, if I were you, Mr. Finn, I would decline to be counted up in that way as one of Mr. Ratler’s sheep.”

“But what am I to do?”

“Do something on your own hook.  You men in Parliament are so much like sheep!  If one jumps at a gap, all go after him,—­and then you are penned into lobbies, and then you are fed, and then you are fleeced.  I wish I were in Parliament.  I’d get up in the middle and make such a speech.  You all seem to me to be so much afraid of one another that you don’t quite dare to speak out.  Do you see that cottage there?”

“What a pretty cottage it is!”

“Yes;—­is it not?  Twelve years ago I took off my shoes and stockings and had them dried in that cottage, and when I got back to the house I was put to bed for having been out all day in the wood.”

“Were you wandering about alone?”

“No, I wasn’t alone.  Oswald Standish was with me.  We were children then.  Do you know him?”

“Lord Chiltern;—­yes, I know him.  He and I have been rather friends this year.”

“He is very good;—­is he not?”

“Good,—­in what way?”

“Honest and generous!”

“I know no man whom I believe to be more so.”

“And he is clever?” asked Miss Effingham.