"I hope not, Roderick. With your position and your responsibilities you ought to marry young. Marriage--a suitable marriage, that is to say--would give you an incentive to earnestness and ambition. I want to see you follow your father's footsteps; I want you to make a name by-and-by." "I'm afraid it will be a distant by-and-by," said Rorie, with a yawn. "I don't feel at all drawn towards the senate. I love the country, my dogs, my horses, the free fresh air, the stir and movement of life too well to pen myself up in a study and pore over blue-books, or to waste the summer evenings listening to the member for Little Peddlington laying down the law about combination drainage, or the proposed loop-line that is intended to connect his borough with the world in general. I'm afraid it isn't in me, mother, and that you'll be sorely disappointed if you set your heart upon my making a figure as a senator." "I should like to see you worthy of your father's name," Lady Jane said, with a regretful sigh. "Providence hasn't made me in the same pattern," answered Rorie. "Look at my grandfather's portrait over the mantelpiece, in pink and mahogany tops. What a glorious fellow he must have been. You should hear how the old people talk of him. I think I inherit his tastes, instead of my father's. Hereditary genius crops up in curious ways, you know. Perhaps, if I have a son, he will be a heaven-born statesman, and you may have your ambition gratified by a grandson. And now about the hunting breakfast. Would this day week suit you?" "This is your house, Roderick. It is for you to give your orders." "Bosh!" exclaimed the son impatiently. "Don't I tell you that you are mistress here, and will be mistress----" "My dear Roderick, let us look things straight in the face," said Lady Jane. "If I were sole mistress here there would be no hunting breakfast. It is just the very last kind of entertainment I should ever dream of giving. I am not complaining, mind. It is natural enough for you to like that kind of thing; and, as master of this house, it is your right to invite whomsoever you please. I am quite happy that it should be so, but let there be no more talk about my being mistress of this house. That is too absurd." Rorie felt all his most generous impulses turned to a sense of constraint and bitterness. He could say no more. "Will you give me a list of the people you would like to be asked?" said his mother, after rather an uncomfortable silence. "I'll go and talk it over with the Duke," answered Rorie. "He'll enter into the spirit of the thing."