“Here’s a bumble bee, William.  Do you think I could tame it in my little glass bog?”

“No, I don’t, Miss Ann; and look out, you’ll be stung!”

“It wouldn’t sting me.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t.”

“Of course—­if you say so——­”

“What time is the motor ordered?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“I’m going with Grandpapa as far as the gate.”

“Suppose he says you’re not?”

“Well, then I shall go all the same.”

“I see.”

“I might go all the way with him to London!  Is Auntie Babs going?”

“No, I don’t think anybody is going with his lordship.”

“I would, if she were.  William!”

“Yes.”

“Is Uncle Eustace sure to be elected?”

“Of course he is.”

“Do you think he’ll be a good Member of Parliament?”

“Lord Miltoun is very clever, Miss Ann.”

“Is he?”

“Well, don’t you think so?”

“Does Charles think so?”

“Ask him.”

“William!”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like London.  I like here, and I like Cotton, and I like home pretty well, and I love Pendridny—­and—­I like Ravensham.”

“His lordship is going to Ravensham to-day on his way up, I heard say.”

“Oh! then he’ll see great-granny.  William——­”

“Here’s Miss Wallace.”

From the doorway a lady with a broad pale patient face said: 

“Come, Ann.”

“All right!  Hallo, Simmons!”

The entering butler replied: 

“Hallo, Miss Ann!”

“I’ve got to go.”

“I’m sure we’re very sorry.”

“Yes.”

The door banged faintly, and in the great room rose the busy silence of those minutes which precede repasts.  Suddenly the four men by the breakfast fable stood back.  Lord Valleys had come in.

He approached slowly, reading a blue paper, with his level grey eyes divided by a little uncharacteristic frown.  He had a tanned yet ruddy, decisively shaped face, with crisp hair and moustache beginning to go iron-grey—­the face of a man who knows his own mind and is contented with that knowledge.  His figure too, well-braced and upright, with the back of the head carried like a soldier’s, confirmed the impression, not so much of self-sufficiency, as of the sufficiency of his habits of life and thought.  And there was apparent about all his movements that peculiar unconsciousness of his surroundings which comes to those who live a great deal in the public eye, have the material machinery of existence placed exactly to their hands, and never need to consider what others think of them.  Taking his seat, and still perusing the paper, he at once began to eat what was put before him; then noticing that his eldest daughter had come in and was sitting down beside him, he said: 

“Bore having to go up in such weather!”