CHAPTER XXVII.
The Duke's Misery We must go back for a while to Gatherum Castle and see the guests whom the Duchess had collected there for her Christmas festivities.
The hospitality of the Duke's house had been maintained almost throughout the autumn.

Just at the end of October they went to Matching, for what the Duchess called a quiet month,--which, however, at the Duke's urgent request became six weeks.

But even here the house was full all the time, though from deficiency of bedrooms the guests were very much less numerous.

But at Matching the Duchess had been uneasy and almost cross.

Mrs.Finn had gone with her husband to Ireland, and she had taught herself to fancy that she could not live without Mrs.Finn.And her husband had insisted upon having round him politicians of his own sort, men who really preferred work to archery, or even to hunting, and who discussed the evils of direct taxation absolutely in the drawing-room.