Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/228

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS hand forward in place of his, and no one noticed the exchange.

She accompanied Gladstone on all his political campaigns, on all his recreative travels. When in 1891 he went into residence at All Souls', Oxford, for a week, she invited herself to stay with Sir Henry Acland, and her husband was in and out of the house as often as he wished.

Sir Stephen Glynne's taste for the study of ecclesiastical architecture led him to rely on others for the management of his estates, and in 1851 it was discovered that their financial condition was in so bad a way, that it was feared Sir Stephen would have to leave Hawarden. Mr. Gladstone had just inherited a large sum of money from his father, and he devoted a portion of it to clearing off the debts that through the indiscretions of an agent, left too much to his own devices, encumbered the Hawarden estates. It was then arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and their young family should regard Hawarden as their country home, Sir Stephen Glynne still continuing to live there. He died suddenly in 1874; he was unmarried, and as his brother Henry, who died in 1872, left no male 192