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Show THE WIFE. - Lord Beaconsfield, in the dedication of "Lothair" describes the person of the dedication, as "a severe critic, but a perfect wife." Here is an incident illustrative of her character. She was driving down to the house to hear an important speech from her husband at the time of a grave political crisis. He, full of his subject and pre-occupied as he alighted from his carriage shut one of her fingers in the door. Agonizing as must have been the pain, she uttered no cry till he was out of sight. Then she besought her footman to open the cruel door. "My dear," she said to one to whom she told the incident. "I would not have cried out for the whole world; in thinking of my pain he would have been so agitated that he would have forgotten all the chief points of his speech." Such a woman deserved that coronet of a viscountess which her husband, refusing all honor himself, laid at the feet of his wife. |