It was rather hard to bear, but it has passed away." That afternoon there was quite a crowd.

Among the first comers were Mr.and Mrs.Roby, and Mr.and Mrs.Rattler.And there were Sir Orlando and Lady Drought, Lord Ramsden, and Sir Timothy Beeswax.
These gentlemen with their wives represented, for the time, the Ministry of which the Duke was the head, and had been asked in order that their fealty and submission might be thus riveted.

There were also there Mr.and Mrs.Boffin, with Lord Thrift and his daughter Angelica, who had belonged to former Ministries,--one on the Liberal and the other on the Conservative side,--and who were now among the Duke's guests, in order that they and others might see how wide the Duke wished to open his hands.

And there was our friend Ferdinand Lopez, who had certainly made the best use of his opportunities in securing for himself so great a social advantage as an invitation to Gatherum Castle.

How could any father, who was simply a barrister, refuse to receive as his son-in-law a man who had been a guest at the Duke of Omnium's country house?
And then there were certain people from the neighbourhood;--Frank Gresham of Greshamsbury, with his wife and daughter, the master of the hounds in those parts, a rich squire of old blood, and head of the family to which one of the aspirant Prime Ministers of the day belonged.