d after they came home was from Lord and Lady
Mallow. The first great dinner to which they were bidden was at
Briarwood, where it seemed a curious thing for Rorie to go as a guest.

Matrimony with the man of her choice had wondrously improved Mabel
Ashbourne. She was less self-sufficient and more conciliating. Her
ambition, hitherto confined to the desire to excel all other women in
her own person, had assumed a less selfish form. She was now only
ambitious for her husband; greedy of parliamentary fame for him; full
of large hopes about the future of Ireland. She looked forward
complacently to the day when she and Lord Mallow would be reigning at
Dublin Castle, and when Hibernian arts and industries would revive and
flourish under her fostering care. Pending that happy state of things
she wore Irish poplin, and Irish lace, Irish stockings, and Irish
linen. She attended Her Majesty's Drawing-room on St. Patrick's Day,
with a sprig of real shamrock--sent her by one of her husband's
tenantry--among the diamonds that sparkled on her bosom. She was more
intensely Irish than the children of the soil; just as converts to
Romanism are ever more severely Roman than those born and nurtured in
the faith.

Her husband was intensely proud of his wife, and of his alliance with
the house of Ashbourne. The Duke, at first inclined to resent the
scandal of an elopement and the slight offered to his favourite, Rorie,
speedily reconciled himself to a marriage which was more materially
advantageous than the cousinly alliance.

"I should like Rorie to have had Ashbourne," he said mournfully. "I
think he would have kept up my breed of Chillingham cattle. Mallow's a
good fellow, but he knows nothing about farming. He'll never spend
enough money on manure to maintain the soil at its present producing
power. The grasp of his mind isn't large enough to allow him to sink
his money in manuring his land. He would be wanting to see an immediate
result."

As time went on the Duke became more and more devoted to his farm. His
Scottish castle delighted him not, nor the grand old place in the
Midlands. Ashbourne, which was the pleasure-dome he had built for
himself, contained all he cared about. Too heavy and too lazy to hunt,
he was able to jog about his farm, and supervise the work that was
going on, to the smallest detail. There was not a foot of drain-pipe or
a bit of thatch renewed on the whole estate, without the Duke having a
finger in the pi