'We are accustomed to obedience in barracks, and enforce it. We have the guard-house to begin with.'
'An institution unknown in Earlshaugh,' said she, with a curl on her lips.
'I have a number of friends coming here to knock over the birds after the 1st—you will please to order arrangements to be made for them.'
'A houseful—I have heard from Maude.'
'Not at all—only Elliot of ours, Skene of Dunnimarle, and one or two more. My cousin Hester and Miss Drummond come too.'
'Must you do this—must I entertain them all?' said she with something like dismay.
'You? Not at all! Let them alone—they will amuse themselves as people in a country house always do. Young fellows and pleasant girls generally contrive to cut out their own amusements.'
'I see so few people now that I shall be quite scared.'
'Let Maude act hostess then,' said Roland sharply, with a tone that seemed to indicate he thought it more her place.
'Maude is but a little child in my eyes—and none can take my position in Earlshaugh!' said Mrs. Lindsay firmly and pointedly; and Roland, tired of an interview, the whole tenor of which provoked him, and in which an undefined and ill-disguised hostility to himself was manifested, looked at his watch and asked: