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By-the-bye, is it true that Mr. Smithson is
likely to get a peerage?'
'I have heard people say as much. Smithson has spent no end of money on
electioneering, and is a power in the House, though he very rarely
speaks. His Berkshire estate gives him a good deal of influence in that
county; at the last general election he subscribed twenty thou to the
Conservative cause; for, like most men who have risen from nothing, your
friend Smithson is a fine old Tory. He was specially elected at the
Carlton six years ago, and has made himself uncommonly useful to his
party. He is supposed to be great on financial questions, and comes out
tremendously on colonial railways or drainage schemes, about which the
House in general is in profound ignorance. On those occasions Smithson
scores high. A man with immense wealth has always chances. No doubt, if
you were to marry him, the peerage would be easily managed. Smithson's
money, backed by the Maulevrier influence, would go a long way. My
grandmother would move heaven and earth in a case of that kind.


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