Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/152

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS both might have been avoided." She used to say that every event in which her husband was concerned left him standing higher than he did before. She was immensely proud of him, liked him to be first, was provoked at Gladstone's enormous success in 1853, and always hated the idea of her husband being out of office. Therefore, notwithstanding the far harder work entailed both on himself and on herself, she was greatly elated when he became Prime Minister for the first time in 1855. Yet later on she confessed, "I would rather that my husband was only Foreign Minister or Home Secretary, for since he became Prime Minister I see nothing of him. He never comes to bed till four or five o'clock." Except on Saturdays and Sundays, he hardly ever dined with her. He had his dinner at three p.m., went down to the House at four, and except some tea had nothing till he came home, seldom before one a.m.

Every Saturday evening in the season Lady Palmerston held a reception. In 1858 they left Carlton Gardens for Cambridge House, 94 Piccadilly, and both she and Lord Palmerston took the greatest interest in fitting up and arranging their new abode. At her parties were 120