Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/211

MRS. GLADSTONE came out in the quietest manner with, 'I've been in India.' Stanley told it very well."

Mrs. Gladstone was present at the Queen's fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace on 12th May. She went as Claude, wife of Francis. of France, and wore a deep red petticoat opening in front, large sleeves of gold tissue and a crimson cap. She found the ball a striking and amusing sight.

At a dinner-party at Lord Ripon's in July, Peel took Mrs. Gladstone in to dinner. She was glad of this because it enabled her to thank him for the letter he had written to her father-in-law about Gladstone. In it Peel said: "At no time in the annals of Parliament has there been exhibited a more admirable combination of ability, extensive knowledge, temper, and discretion. Your feelings must be gratified in the highest degree by the success which has naturally and justly followed his intellectual exertions, and that the capacity to make such exertions is combined in his case with such purity of heart and integrity of spirit."

Mrs. Gladstone gives the following interesting account of Peel's talk at dinner:

"He was in great force, some of the con- 175