t there would be any law
to turn him out of the country."

"Nor out of the Post Office, if he chooses to remain there," said
Mrs. Roden.

"I don't know how that may be."

"Even if they did, I should prefer that it should be so. According to
my thinking, no man should fling away a privilege that is his own, or
should be ashamed of assuming a nobility that belongs to him. If not
for his own sake, he should do it for the sake of his children. He
at any rate has nothing to be ashamed of in the name. It belonged to
his father and to his grandfather, and to his ancestors through many
generations. Think how men fight for a title in this country; how
they struggle for it when there is a doubt as to who may properly
have inherited it! Here there is no doubt. Here there need be no
struggle." Convinced by the weight of this argument Mrs. Vincent gave
in her adhesion, and at last expressed an opinion that her cousin
should at once call himself by his father's name.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GREAT QUESTION.

Neither were the arguments of Mrs. Roden nor the adhesion of Mrs.
Vincent of any power in persuading George Roden. He answered his
mother gently, kindly, but very firmly. Had anything, he said, been
necessary to strengthen his own feeling, it would have been found in
his mother's determination to keep his old name. "Surely, mother, if
I may say so without disrespect, what is sauce for the goose is sauce
for the gander." At this the mother smiled, kissing her son to show
that the argument had been taken in good part. "In this matter," he
continued, "we certainly are in a boat together. If I am a Duke you
would be a Duchess. If I am doomed to make an ape of myself at the
Post Office, you must be equally ridiculous in Paradise Row,--unless
you are prepared to go back to Italy and live your life there."

"And you?"

"I could not live there. How could I earn my bread there? How could
I pass my days so as to be in any degree useful? What could be more
mean? My uncle, though he has been civil, and to a certain degree
generous, would be specially anxious not to see me in public life.
You and I together would have just means enough for existence. I
should be doomed to walk about the streets of some third-rate Italian
town, and call myself by my grand name. Would a life like that
satisfy your ambition on my behalf?" Then she thought of the girl who
was in love with him, of the friends whom he had made for himself, of
the char