Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/173

MRS. DISRAELI that Lord Hardinge's room was next to the Disraelis', and the next morning Mrs. Disraeli said to Lord Hardinge at breakfast, "Oh, Lord Hardinge, I consider myself the most fortunate of women. I said to myself when I woke this morning, 'What a lucky woman I am! here I have been sleeping between the greatest orator and the greatest warrior of the day!'" Lady Hardinge, it was stated, did not look specially delighted. On the occasion of another visit it so happened that a former occupier of the house having possessed a number of fine paintings of the nude figure, the hostess had carefully removed from the walls all the pictures which she considered of doubtful propriety. One, however, had been overlooked and hung, as it chanced, in the room allotted to the Disraelis. Addressing her hostess, a lady of strictly puritanical views, Mrs. Disraeli said the first morning, "I find your house full of indecent pictures, there's a horrible one in our room: Disraeli says it is Venus and Adonis; I've been awake half the night trying to prevent him looking at it!" Again, when her host apologised for a dish having too much onion in it, she said, "I prefer them raw." At a concert at 139