A happy marriage which brought him into close kinship with the Sovereign forbade the Duke's taking active part in political life. It gave him fuller opportunity for dallying with his dearly-loved foster-mother, Literature. Endowed with the highest honours birth could give or the Sovereign bestow, he bore them with a modesty that made others momentarily forget their existence. Circumstances precluding his living at Inveraray Castle and keeping up its feudal state, it was characteristic of him that he cheerily homed himself in a cottage some two miles down the loch-side, originally built for a factor. Little by little he enlarged the residence till Dalchenna House became a roomy mansion. Here, in company of a few choice companions, it was his delight to stay during the autumn months. He kept to his study in the morning, engaged in literary work or dealing with his vast correspondence. After luncheon he led his guests forth, usually on foot, to tread the Highland ways he knew since boyhood, when as Marquis of Lorne he presented the picture of manly beauty in Highland dress that to-day adorns the hall of Inveraray Castle. In later years he built for himself a chalet set amid the pine-trees of the ancient French forest of Hardelot, within sight and sound and scent of the sea. Like Dalchenna this began in a small way. Enamoured with the peace and rest that brooded over the place, he went on year by year enlarging and embellishing it. According to long-laid plans he was to have spent the Easter recess in his French retreat. Almost at the last moment duty called him elsewhere, and, as was his wont, he uncomplainingly obeyed. But he insisted that two old friends, whom he had bidden to keep Easter tryst with him, should not alter their plans. So the chalet, with its dainty appointments and its domestic establishment after the Duke's own heart--a French peasant and his wife, who acted as butler and cook--was placed at their disposal, he bestowing infinite pains upon arrangements for their comfort whilst under his roof. [Illustration: "It was hardly a tactful way of trying to convert him to the movement to place a bomb under his throne at St. Paul's."--_The Bishop of London in the Debate on Lord Selborne's Bill for Female Enfranchisement._] This little episode, the most recent in a busy life, is a typical instance of his unselfishness and untiring thought for others.