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WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS life. Other presentations were made on the wedding anniversary itself, both in London and at Hawarden, and again Mr. Gladstone said that no words he could use would ever suffice to express the debt he owed his wife in relation to all the offices she had discharged in his behalf during the long and happy period of their conjugal union.

Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister for a short time in 1886. From 1892 to 1894 he again held the office, and in the latter year retired for good from public life. Mrs. Gladstone was much disturbed by his decision and did everything in her power to persuade him to continue in office, but he stood firm as the rocks at Biarritz, where the discussion was held. It had always been his belief that men ought not to go on with official work after they had become really old. He was eighty-five, so that no one could say he had not done his share of the work of the world.

The nature of the pains in the face from which Gladstone suffered was recognised early in 1897. His wife went with him to Cannes in the hope that a more genial climate might be beneficial, but when it became certain that the malady was incurable, they returned to 208