," 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."

Rorie found the Duke going the round of the loose-boxes, and uncle and
nephew spent an hour together pleasantly, overhauling the fine stud of
hunters which the Duke kept at Ashbourne, and going round the paddocks
to look at the brood-mares and their foals; these latter being
eccentric little animals, all head and legs, which nestled close to the
mother's side for a minute, and then took fright at their own tails,
and shot off across the field, like a skyrocket travelling
horizontally, or suddenly stood up on end, and executed a wild waltz in
mid air.

The Duke and Roderick decided which among these leggy little beasts
possessed the elements of future excellence; and after an hour's
perambulation of the paddocks they went to the house, where they found
the Duchess and Lady Mabel in the morning-room; the Duchess busy making
scarlet cloth cloaks for her school-children, Lady Mabel reading a
German critic on Shakespeare.

Here the hunt breakfast was fully discussed. Everybody was to be asked.
The Duchess put in a plea for her school-children. It would be such a
treat for the little things to see the hounds, and their red cloaks and
hoods would look so pretty on the lawn.

"Let them come, by all means," said Roderick; "your
school--half-a-dozen schools. I'll have three or four tents rigged up
for refreshments. There shall be plenty to eat and drink for everybody.
And now I'm off to the Tempests' to arrange about the hounds. The
Squire will be pleased, I know."

"Of course," said Lady Mabel, "and the Squire's daughter."

"Dear little thing!" exclaimed Rorie, with an elder brother's
tenderness; "she'll be as pleased as Punch. You'