LXXVI. I THINK HE IS LIGHT OF HEART…

LXXVI. I THINK HE IS LIGHT OF HEART

Mrs. Arabin remained one day in town. Mr. Toogood, in spite of his asseveration that he would not budge from Barchester till he had seen Mr. Crawley through all his troubles, did run up to London as soon as the news reached him that John Eames had returned. He came up and took Mrs. Arabin's deposition, which he sent down to Mr. Walker. It might still be necessary, Mrs. Arabin was told, that she should go into court, and there state on oath that she had given the cheque to Mr. Crawley; but Mr. Walker was of opinion that the circumstances would enable the judge to call upon the grand jury not to find a true bill against Mr. Crawley, and that the whole affair, as far as Mr. Crawley was concerned, would thus be brought to an end. Toogood was still very anxious to place Dan Stringer in the dock, but Mr. Walker declared that they would fail if they made the attempt. Dan had been examined before the magistrates at Barchester, and had persisted in his statement that he had heard nothing about Mr. Crawley and the cheque. This he said in the teeth of the words which had fallen from him unawares in the presence of Mr. Toogood. But they could not punish him for a lie,--not even for such a lie as that! He was not upon oath, and they could not make him responsible to the law because he had held his tongue upon a matter as to which it was manifest to them all that he had known the whole history during the entire period of Mr. Crawley's persecution. They could only call upon him to account for his possession of the cheque, and this he did by saying it had been paid to him by Jem Scuttle, who received all moneys appertaining to the hotel stables, and accounted for them once a week. Jem Scuttle had simply told him that he had taken the cheque from Mr. Soames, and Jem had since gone to New Zealand. It was quite true that Jem's departure had followed suspiciously close upon the payment of the rent to Mrs. Arabin, and that Jem had been in close amity with Dan Stringer up to the moment of his departure. That Dan Stringer had not become honestly possessed of the cheque, everybody knew; but, nevertheless, the magistrates were of opinion, Mr. Walker coinciding with them, that there was no evidence against him sufficient to secure a conviction. The story, however, of Mr. Crawley's injuries was so well known in Barchester, and the feeling against the man who had permitted him to be thus injured was so strong, that Dan Stringer did not altogether escape without punishment. Some rough spirits in Barchester called one night at "The Dragon of Wantly," and begged that Mr. Dan Stringer would be kind enough to come out and take a walk with them that evening; and when it was intimated to them that Dan Stringer had not just then any desire for such exercise, they requested to be allowed to go into the back parlour and make an evening with Dan Stringer in that recess. There was a terrible row at "The Dragon of Wantly" that night, and Dan with difficulty was rescued by the police. On the following morning he was smuggled out of Barchester by an early train, and has never more been seen in that city. Rumours of him, however, were soon heard, from which it appeared that he had made himself acquainted with the casual ward of more than one workhouse in London. His cousin John left the inn almost immediately,--as, indeed, he must have done had there been no question of Mr. Soames's cheque,--and then there was nothing more heard of the Stringers in Barchester.

Mrs. Arabin remained in town one day, and would have remained longer, waiting for her husband, had not a letter from her sister impressed upon her that it might be as well that she should be with their father as soon as possible. "I don't mean to make you think that there is any immediate danger," Mrs. Grantly said, "and, indeed, we cannot say that he is ill; but it seems that the extremity of old age has come upon him almost suddenly, and that he is as weak as a child. His only delight is with the children, especially with Posy, whose gravity in her management of him is wonderful. He has not left his room now for more than a week, and he eats very little. It may be that he will live yet for years; but I should be deceiving you if I did not let you know that both the archdeacon and I think that the time of his departure from us is near at hand." After reading this letter, Mrs. Arabin could not wait in town for her husband, even though he was expected in two days, and though she had been told that her presence at Barchester was not immediately required on behalf of Mr. Crawley.

But during that one day she kept her promise to John Eames by going to Lily Dale. Mrs. Arabin had become very fond of Johnny, and felt that he deserved the prize which he had been so long trying to win. The reader, perhaps, may not agree with Mrs. Arabin. The reader, who may have caught a closer insight into Johnny's character than Mrs. Arabin had obtained, may, perhaps, think that a young man who could amuse himself with Miss Demolines was unworthy of Lily Dale. If so, I may declare for myself that I and the reader are not in accord about John Eames. It is hard to measure worth and worthlessness in such matters, as there is no standard for such measurement. My old friend John was certainly no hero,--was very unheroic in many phases of his life; but then, if all the girls are to wait for heroes, I fear that the difficulties in the way of matrimonial arrangements, great as they are at present, will be very seriously enhanced. Johnny was not ecstatic, nor heroic, nor transcendental, nor very beautiful in his manliness; he was not a man to break his heart for love, or to have his story written in an epic; but he was an affectionate, kindly, honest young man; and I think most girls might have done worse than take him. Whether he was wise to ask assistance in his love-making so often as he had done, that may be another question.

Mrs. Arabin was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Thorne, and therefore there was nothing odd in her going to Mrs. Thorne's house. Mrs. Thorne was very glad to see her, and told her all the Barsetshire news,--much more than Mrs. Arabin would have learned in a week at the deanery; for Mrs. Thorne had a marvellous gift of picking up news. She had already heard the whole story of Mr. Soames's cheque, and expressed her conviction that the least that could be done in amends to Mr. Crawley was to make him a bishop. "And you see the palace is vacant," said Mrs. Thorne.

"The palace vacant!" said Mrs. Arabin.

"It is just as good. Now that Mrs. Proudie has gone I don't suppose the poor bishop will count for much. I can assure you, Mrs. Arabin, I felt that poor woman's death so much! She used to regard me as one of the staunchest of the Proudieites! She once whispered to me such a delightfully wicked story about the dean and the archdeacon. When I told her that they were my particular friends, she put on a look of horror. But I don't think she believed me." Then Emily Dunstable entered the room, and with her came Lily Dale. Mrs. Arabin had never before seen Lily, and of course they were introduced. "I am sorry to say Miss Dale is going home to Allington to-morrow," said Emily. "But she is coming to Chaldicotes in May," said Mrs. Thorne. "Of course, Mrs. Arabin, you know what gala doings we are going to have in May?" Then there were various civil little speeches made on each side, and Mrs. Arabin expressed a wish that she might meet Miss Dale again in Barsetshire. But all this did not bring her at all nearer to her object.

"I particularly wish to say a word to Miss Dale,--here to-day, if she will allow me," said Mrs. Arabin.

"I'm sure she will,--twenty words; won't you, Lily?" said Mrs. Thorne, preparing to leave the room. Then Mrs. Arabin apologized, and Mrs. Thorne, bustling up, said that it did not signify, and Lily, remaining quite still on the sofa, wondered what it was all about,--and in two minutes Lily and Mrs. Arabin were alone together. Lily had just time to surmise that Mrs. Arabin's visit must have some reference to Mr. Crosbie,--remembering that Crosbie had married his wife out of Barsetshire, and forgetting altogether that Mrs. Arabin had been just brought home from Italy by John Eames.

"I am afraid, Miss Dale, you will think me very impertinent," said Mrs. Arabin.

"I am sure I shall not think that," said Lily.

"I believe you knew, before Mr. Eames started, that he was going to Italy to find me and my husband?" said Mrs. Arabin. Then Lily put Mr. Crosbie altogether out of her head, and became aware that he was not to be the subject of the coming conversation. She was almost sorry that it was so. There was no doubt in her mind as to what she would have said to any one who might have taken up Crosbie's cause. On that matter she could now have given a very decisive answer in a few words. But on that other matter she was much more in doubt. She remembered, however, every word of the note she had received from M. D. She remembered also the words of John's note to that young woman. And her heart was still hard against him. "Yes," she said; "Mr. Eames came here one night and told us why he was going. I was very glad that he was going, because I thought it was right."

"You know, of course, how successful he has been? It was I who gave the cheque to Mr. Crawley."

"So Mrs. Thorne has heard. Dr. Thorne has written to tell her the whole story."

"And now I've come to look for Mr. Eames's reward."

"His reward, Mrs. Arabin?"

"Yes; or rather to plead for him. You will not, I hope, be angry with him because he has told me much of his history while we were travelling home alone together."

"Oh, no," said Lily, smiling. "How could he have chosen a better friend in whom to trust?"

"He could certainly have chosen none who would take his part more sincerely. He is so good and so amiable! He is so pleasant in his ways, and so fitted to make a woman happy! And then, Miss Dale, he is also so devoted!"

"He is an old friend of ours, Mrs. Arabin."

"So he has told me."

"And we all of us love him dearly. Mamma is very much attached to him."

"Unless he flatters himself, there is no one belonging to you who would not wish that he should be nearer and dearer still."

"It may be so. I do not say that it is not so. Mamma and my uncle are both fond of him."

"And does not that go a long way?" said Mrs. Arabin.

"It ought not to do so," said Lily. "It ought not to go any way at all."

"Ought it not? It seems to me that I could never have brought myself to marry any one whom my old friends had not liked."

"Ah! that is another thing."

"But is it not a recommendation to a man that he has been so successful with your friends as to make them all feel that you might trust yourself to him with perfect safety?" To this Lily made no answer, and Mrs. Arabin went on to plead her friend's cause with all the eloquence she could use, insisting on all his virtues, his good temper, his kindness, his constancy,--and not forgetting the fact that the world was inclined to use him very well. Still Lily made no answer. She had promised Mrs. Arabin that she would not regard her interference as impertinent, and therefore she refrained from any word that might seem to show offence. Nor did she feel offence. It was something gained by John Eames in Lily's estimation that he should have such a friend as Mrs. Arabin to take an interest in his welfare. But there was a self-dependence, perhaps one may call it an obstinacy about Lily Dale, which made her determined that she would not be driven hither or thither by any pressure from without. Why had John Eames, at the very moment when he should have been doing his best to drive from her breast the memory of past follies,--when he would have striven to do so had he really been earnest in his suit,--why at such a moment had he allowed himself to correspond in terms of affection with such a woman as this M. D.? While Mrs. Arabin was pleading for John Eames, Lily was repeating to herself certain words which John had written to the woman--"Ever and always yours unalterably." Such were not the exact words, but such was the form in which Lily, dishonestly, chose to repeat them to herself. And why was it so with her? In the old days she would have forgiven Crosbie any offence at a word or a look,--any possible letter to any M. D., let her have been ever so abominable! Nay,--had she not even forgiven him the offence of deserting herself altogether on behalf of a woman as detestable as could be any M. D. of Johnny's choosing;--a woman whose only recommendation had been her title? And yet she would not forgive John Eames, though the evidence against him was of so flimsy a nature,--but rather strove to turn the flimsiness of that evidence into strength! Why was it so? Unheroic as he might be, John Eames was surely a better man and a bigger man than Adolphus Crosbie. It was simply this;--she had fallen in love with the one, and had never fallen in love with the other! She had fallen in love with the one man, though in her simple way she had made a struggle against such feeling; and she had not come to love the other man, though she had told herself that it would be well that she should do so if it were possible. Again and again she had half declared to herself that she would take him as her husband and leave the love to come afterwards; but when the moment came for doing so, she could not do it.

"May I not say a word of comfort to him?" said Mrs. Arabin.

"He will be very comfortable without any such word," said Lily, laughing.

"But he is not comfortable; of that you may be very sure." "Yours ever and unalterably, J. E.," said Lily to herself. "You do not doubt his affection?" continued Mrs. Arabin.

"I neither doubt it nor credit it."

"Then I think you wrong him. And the reason why I have ventured to come to you is that you may know the impression which he has made upon one who was but the other day a stranger to him. I am sure that he loves you."

"I think he is light of heart."

"Oh, no, Miss Dale."

"And how am I to become his wife unless I love him well enough myself? Mrs. Arabin, I have made up my mind about it. I shall never become any man's wife. Mamma and I are all in all together, and we shall remain together." As soon as these words were out of her mouth, she hated herself for having spoken them. There was a maudlin, missish, namby-mamby sentimentality about them which disgusted her. She specially desired to be straightforward, resolute of purpose, honest-spoken, and free from all touch of affectation. And yet she had excused herself from marrying John Eames after the fashion of a sick schoolgirl. "It is no good talking about it any more," she said, getting up from her chair quickly.

"You are not angry with me;--or at any rate you will forgive me?"

"I'm quite sure you have meant to be very good, and I am not a bit angry."

"And you will see him before you go?"

"Oh, yes; that is if he likes to come to-day, or early to-morrow. I go home to-morrow. I cannot refuse him, because he is such an old friend,--almost like a brother. But it is of no use, Mrs. Arabin." Then Mrs. Arabin kissed her and left her, telling her that Mr. Eames would come to her that afternoon at half-past five. Lily promised that she would be at home to receive him.

"Won't you ride with us for the last time?" said Emily Dunstable when Lily gave notice that she would not want the horse on that afternoon.

"No; not to-day."

"You'll never have another opportunity of riding with Emily Dunstable," said the bride elect;--"at least I hope not."

"Even under those circumstances I must refuse, though I would give a guinea to be with you. John Eames is coming here to say good-by."

"Oh; then indeed you must not come with us. Lily, what will you say to him?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, Lily, think of it."

"I have thought of it. I have thought of nothing else. I am tired of thinking of it. It is not good to think of anything so much. What does it matter?"

"It is very good to have some one to love one better than all the world besides."

"I have some one," said Lily, thinking of her mother, but not caring to descend again to the mawkish weakness of talking about her.

"Yes; but some one to be always with you, to do everything for you, to be your very own."

"It is all very well for you," said Lily, "and I think that Bernard is the luckiest fellow in the world; but it will not do for me. I know in what college I'll take my degree, and I wish they'd let me write the letters after my name as the men do."

"What letters, Lily?"

"O.M., for Old Maid. I don't see why it shouldn't be as good as B.A. for Bachelor of Arts. It would mean a great deal more."

LXXVII. THE SHATTERED TREE

When Mrs. Arabin saw Johnny in the middle of that day, she could hardly give him much encouragement. And yet she felt by no means sure that he might not succeed even yet. Lily had been very positive in her answers, and yet there had been something, either in her words or in the tone of her voice, which had made Mrs. Arabin feel that even Lily was not quite sure of herself. There was still room for relenting. Nothing, however, had been said which could justify her in bidding John Eames simply "to go in and win." "I think he is light of heart," Lily had said. Those were the words which, of all that had been spoken, most impressed themselves on Mrs. Arabin's memory. She would not repeat them to her friend, but she would graft upon them such advice as she had to give him.

And this she did, telling him that she thought that perhaps Lily doubted his actual earnestness. "I would marry her this moment," said Johnny. But that was not enough, as Mrs. Arabin knew, to prove his earnestness. Many men, fickle as weathercocks, are ready to marry at the moment,--are ready to marry at the moment, because they are fickle, and think so little about it. "But she hears, perhaps, of your liking other people," said Mrs. Arabin. "I don't care a straw for any other person," said Johnny. "I wonder whether if I was to shut myself up in a cage for six months, it would do any good?" "If she had the keeping of the cage, perhaps it might," said Mrs. Arabin. She had nothing more to say to him on that subject, but to tell him that Miss Dale would expect him that afternoon at half-past five. "I told her that you would come to wish her good-by, and she promised to see you."

"I wish she'd say she wouldn't see me. Then there would be some chance," said Johnny.

Between him and Mrs. Arabin the parting was very affectionate. She told him how thankful she was for his kindness in coming to her, and how grateful she would ever be,--and the dean also,--for his attention to her. "Remember, Mr. Eames, that you will always be most welcome at the deanery of Barchester. And I do hope that before long you may be there with your wife." And so they parted.

He left her at about two, and went to Mr. Toogood's office in Bedford Row. He found his uncle, and the two went out to lunch together in Holborn. Between them there was no word said about Lily Dale, and John was glad to have some other subject in his mind for half an hour. Toogood was full of his triumph about Mr. Crawley and of his successes in Barsetshire. He gave John a long account of his visit to Plumstead, and expressed his opinion that if all clergymen were like the archdeacon there would not be so much room for Dissenters. "I've seen a good many parsons in my time," said Toogood; "but I don't think I ever saw such a one as him. You know he is a clergyman somehow, and he never lets you forget it; but that's about all. Most of 'em are never contented without choking you with their white cravats all the time you're with 'em. As for Crawley himself," Mr. Toogood continued, "he's not like anybody else that ever was born, saint or sinner, parson or layman. I never heard of such a man in all my experience. Though he knew where he got the cheque as well as I know it now, he wouldn't say so, because the dean had said it wasn't so. Somebody ought to write a book about it,--indeed they ought." Then he told the whole story of Dan Stringer, and how he had found Dan out, looking at the top of Dan's hat through the little aperture in the wall of the inn parlour. "When I saw the twitch in his hat, John, I knew he had handled the cheque himself. I don't mean to say that I'm sharper than another man, and I don't think so; but I do mean to say that when you are in any difficulty of that sort, you ought to go to a lawyer. It's his business, and a man does what is his business with patience and perseverance. It's a pity, though, that that scoundrel should get off." Then Eames gave his uncle an account of his Italian trip, to and fro, and was congratulated also upon his success. John's great triumph lay in the fact that he had been only two nights in bed, and that he would not have so far condescended on those occasions but for the feminine weakness of his fellow-traveller. "We shan't forget it all in a hurry,--shall we, John?" said Mr. Toogood, in a pleasant voice, as they parted at the door of the luncheon-house in Holborn. Toogood was returning to his office, and John Eames was to prepare himself for his last attempt.

He went home to his lodgings, intending at first to change his dress,--to make himself smart for the work before him,--but after standing for a moment or two leaning on the chest of drawers in his bed-room, he gave up this idea. "After all that's come and gone," he said to himself, "if I cannot win her as I am now, I cannot win her at all." And then he swore to himself a solemn oath, resolving that he would repeat the purport of it to Lily herself,--that this should be the last attempt. "What's the use of it? Everybody ridicules me. And I am ridiculous. I am an ass. It's all very well wanting to be prime minister; but if you can't be prime minister, you must do without being prime minister." Then he attempted to sing the old song--"Shall I, sighing in despair, die because a woman's fair? If she be not fair for me, what care I how fair she be?" But he did care, and he told himself that the song did him no good. As it was not time for him as yet to go to Lily, he threw himself on the sofa, and strove to read a book. Then all the weary nights of his journey prevailed over him, and he fell asleep.

When he awoke it wanted a quarter to six. He sprang up, and rushing out, jumped into a cab. "Berkeley Square,--as hard as you can go," he said. "Number --." He thought of Rosalind, and her counsels to lovers as to the keeping of time, and reflected that in such an emergency as his, he might really have ruined himself by that unfortunate slumber. When he got to Mrs. Thorne's door he knocked hurriedly, and bustled up to the drawing-room as though everything depended on his saving a minute. "I'm afraid I'm ever so much behind my time," he said.

"It does not matter in the least," said Lily. "As Mrs. Arabin said that perhaps you might call, I would not be out of the way. I supposed that Sir Raffle was keeping you and that you wouldn't come."

"Sir Raffle was not keeping me. I fell asleep. That is the truth of it."

"I am so sorry that you should have been disturbed!"

"Do not laugh at me, Lily,--to-day. I had been travelling a good deal, and I suppose I was tired."

"I won't laugh at you," she said, and of a sudden her eyes became full of tears,--she did not know why. But there they were, and she was ashamed to put up her handkerchief, and she could not bring herself to turn away her face, and she had no resource but that he should see them.

"Lily!" he said.

"What a paladin you have been, John, rushing all about Europe on your friend's behalf!"

"Don't talk about that."

"And such a successful paladin too! Why am I not to talk about it? I am going home to-morrow, and I mean to talk about nothing else for a week. I am so very, very, very glad that you have saved your cousin." Then she did put up her handkerchief, making believe that her tears had been due to Mr. Crawley. But John Eames knew better than that.

"Lily," he said, "I've come for the last time. It sounds as though I meant to threaten you; but you won't take it in that way. I think you will know what I mean. I have come for the last time--to ask you to be my wife." She had got up to greet him when he entered, and they were both still standing. She did not answer him at once, but turning away from him walked towards the window. "You knew why I was coming to-day, Lily?"

"Mrs. Arabin told me. I could not be away when you were coming, but perhaps it would have been better."

"Is it so? Must it be so? Must you say that to me, Lily? Think of it for a moment, dear."

"I have thought of it."

"One word from you, yes or no, spoken now is to be everything to me for always. Lily, cannot you say yes?" She did not answer him, but walked further away from him to another window. "Try to say yes. Look round at me with one look that may only half mean it;--that may tell me that it shall not positively be no for ever." I think that she almost tried to turn her face to him; but be that as it may, she kept her eyes steadily fixed upon the window-pane. "Lily," he said, "it is not that you are hard-hearted,--perhaps not altogether that you do not like me. I think that you believe things against me that are not true." As she heard this she moved her foot angrily upon the carpet. She had almost forgotten M. D., but now he had reminded her of the note. She assured herself that she had never believed anything against him except on evidence that was incontrovertible. But she was not going to speak to him on such a matter as that! It would not become her to accuse him. "Mrs. Arabin tells me that you doubt whether I am in earnest," he said.

Upon hearing this she flashed round upon him almost angrily. "I never said that."

"If you will ask me for any token of earnestness, I will give it you."

"I want no token."

"The best sign of earnestness a man can give generally in such a matter, is to show how ready he is to be married."

"I never said anything about earnestness."

"At the risk of making you angry I will go on, Lily. Of course when you tell me that you will have nothing to say to me, I try to amuse myself"--"Yes; by writing love-letters to M. D.," said Lily to herself.--"What is a poor fellow to do? I tell you fairly that when I leave you I swear to myself that I will make love to the first girl I can see who will listen to me--to twenty, if twenty will let me. I feel I have failed, and it is so I punish myself for my failure." There was something in this which softened her brow, though she did not intend that it should be so; and she turned away again, that he might not see that her brow was softened. "But, Lily, the hope ever comes back again, and then neither the one nor the twenty are of avail,--even to punish me. When I look forward and see what it might be if you were with me, how green it all looks and how lovely, in spite of all the vows I have made, I cannot help coming back again." She was now again near the window, and he had not followed her. As she neither turned towards him nor answered him, he moved from the table near which he was standing on to the rug before the fire, and leaned with both his elbows on the mantelpiece. He could still watch her in the mirror over the fireplace, and could see that she was still seeming to gaze out upon the street. And had he not moved her? I think he had so far moved her now, that she had ceased to think of the woman who had written to her,--that she had ceased to reject him in her heart on the score of such levities as that! If there were M. D.'s, like sunken rocks, in his course, whose fault was it? He was ready enough to steer his bark into the tranquil blue waters, if only she would aid him. I think that all his sins on that score were at this moment forgiven him. He had told her now what to him would be green and beautiful, and she did not find herself able to disbelieve him. She had banished M. D. out of her mind, but in doing so she admitted other reminiscences into it. And then,--was she in a moment to be talked out of the resolution of years; and was she to give up herself, not because she loved, but because the man who talked to her talked so well that he deserved a reward? Was she now to be as light, as foolish, as easy, as in those former days from which she had learned her wisdom? A picture of green lovely things could be delicious to her eyes as to his; but even for such a picture as that the price might be too dear! Of all living men,--of all men living in their present lives,--she loved best this man who was now waiting for some word of answer to his words, and she did love him dearly; she would have tended him if sick, have supplied him if in want, have mourned for him if dead, with the bitter grief of true affection;--but she could not say to herself that he should be her lord and master, the head of her house, the owner of herself, the ruler of her life. The shipwreck to which she had once come, and the fierce regrets which had thence arisen, had forced her to think too much of these things. "Lily," he said, still facing towards the mirror, "will you not come to me and speak to me?" She turned round, and stood a moment looking at him, and then, having again resolved that it could not be as he wished, she drew near to him. "Certainly I will speak to you, John. Here I am." And she came close to him.

He took both her hands, and looked into her eyes. "Lily, will you be mine?"

"No, dear; it cannot be so."

"Why not, Lily?"

"Because of that other man."

"And is that to be a bar for ever?"

"Yes; for ever."

"Do you still love him?"

"No; no, no!"

"Then why should this be so?"

"I cannot tell, dear. It is so. If you take a young tree and split it, it still lives, perhaps. But it isn't a tree. It is only a fragment."

"Then be my fragment."

"So I will, if it can serve you to give standing ground to such a fragment in some corner of your garden. But I will not have myself planted out in the middle, for people to look at. What there is left would die soon." He still held her hands, and she did not attempt to draw them away. "John," she said, "next to mamma, I love you better than all the world. Indeed I do. I can't be your wife, but you need never be afraid that I shall be more to another than I am to you."

"That will not serve me," he said, grasping both her hands till he almost hurt them, but not knowing that he did so. "That is no good."

"It is all the good that I can do you. Indeed I can do you,--can do no one any good. The trees that the storms have splintered are never of use."

"And is this to be the end of all, Lily?"

"Not of our loving friendship."

"Friendship! I hate the word. I hear some one's step, and I had better leave you. Good-by."

"Good-by, John. Be kinder than that to me as you are going." He turned back for a moment, took her hand, and held it tight against his heart, and then he left her. In the hall he met Mrs. Thorne, but, as she said afterwards, he had been too much knocked about to be able to throw a word to a dog.

To Mrs. Thorne Lily said hardly a word about John Eames, and when her cousin Bernard questioned her about him she was dumb. And in these days she could assume a manner, and express herself with her eyes as well as with her voice, after a fashion, which was apt to silence unwelcome questioners, even though they were as intimate with her as was her cousin Bernard. She had described her feelings more plainly to her lover than she had ever done to any one,--even to her mother; and having done so she meant to be silent on that subject for evermore. But of her settled purpose she did say some word to Emily Dunstable that night. "I do feel," she said, "that I have got the thing settled at last."

"And you have settled it, as you call it, in opposition to the wishes of all your friends?"

"That is true; and yet I have settled it rightly, and I would not for worlds have it unsettled again. There are matters on which friends should not have wishes, or at any rate should not express them."

"Is that meant to be severe to me?"

"No; not to you. I was thinking about mamma, and Bell, and my uncle, and Bernard, who all seem to think that I am to be looked upon as a regular castaway because I am not likely to have a husband of my own. Of course you, in your position, must think a girl a castaway who isn't going to be married?"

"I think that a girl who is going to be married has the best of it."

"And I think a girl who isn't going to be married has the best of it;--that's all. But I feel that the thing is done now, and I am contented. For the last six or eight months there has come up, I know not how, a state of doubt which has made me so wretched that I have done literally nothing. I haven't been able to finish old Mrs. Heard's tippet, literally because people would talk to me about that dearest of all dear fellows, John Eames. And yet all along I have known how it would be,--as well as I do now."

"I cannot understand you, Lily; I can't indeed."

"I can understand myself. I love him so well,--with that intimate, close, familiar affection,--that I could wash his clothes for him to-morrow, out of pure personal regard, and think it no shame. He could not ask me to do a single thing for him,--except the one thing,--that I would refuse. And I'll go further. I would sooner marry him than any man in the world I ever saw, or, as I believe, that I ever shall see. And yet I am very glad that it is settled."

On the next day Lily Dale went down to the Small House of Allington, and so she passes out of our sight. I can only ask the reader to believe that she was in earnest, and express my own opinion, in this last word that I shall ever write respecting her, that she will live and die as Lily Dale.

LXXVII. THE ARABINS RETURN TO BARCHESTER

In these days Mr. Harding was keeping his bed at the deanery, and most of those who saw him declared that he would never again leave it. The archdeacon had been slow to believe so, because he had still found his father-in-law able to talk to him;--not indeed with energy, but then Mr. Harding had never been energetic on ordinary matters,--but with the same soft cordial interest in things which had ever been customary with him. He had latterly been much interested about Mr. Crawley, and would make both the archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly tell him all that they heard, and what they thought of the case. This of course had been before the all-important news had been received from Mrs. Arabin. Mr. Harding was very anxious, "Firstly," as he said, "for the welfare of the poor man, of whom I cannot bring myself to think ill; and then for the honour of the cloth in Barchester." "We are as liable to have black sheep here as elsewhere," the archdeacon replied. "But, my dear, I do not think that the sheep is black; and we never have had black sheep in Barchester." "Haven't we though?" said the archdeacon, thinking, however, of sheep who were black with a different kind of blackness from this which was now attributed to poor Mr. Crawley,--of a blackness which was not absolute blackness to Mr. Harding's milder eyes. The archdeacon, when he heard his father-in-law talk after this fashion, expressed his opinion that he might live yet for years. He was just the man to linger on, living in bed,--as indeed he had lingered all his life out of bed. But the doctor who attended him thought otherwise, as did also Mrs. Grantly, and as did Mrs. Baxter, and as also did Posy. "Grandpa won't get up any more, will he?" Posy said to Mrs. Baxter. "I hope he will, my dear; and that very soon." "I don't think he will," said Posy, "because he said he would never see the big fiddle again." "That comes of his being a little melancholy like, my dear," said Mrs. Baxter.

Mrs. Grantly at this time went into Barchester almost every day, and the archdeacon, who was very often in the city, never went there without passing half-an-hour with the old man. These two clergymen, essentially different in their characters and in every detail of conduct, had been so much thrown together by circumstances that the life of each had almost become a part of the life of the other. Although the fact of Mr. Harding's residence at the deanery had of late years thrown him oftener into the society of the dean than that of his other son-in-law, yet his intimacy with the archdeacon had been so much earlier, and his memories of the archdeacon were so much clearer, that he depended almost more upon the rector of Plumstead, who was absent, than he did upon the dean, whom he customarily saw every day. It was not so with his daughters. His Nelly, as he had used to call her, had ever been his favourite, and the circumstances of their joint lives had been such, that they had never been further separated than from one street of Barchester to another,--and that only for the very short period of the married life of Mrs. Arabin's first husband. For all that was soft and tender therefore,--which with Mr. Harding was all in the world that was charming to him,--he looked to his youngest daughter; but for authority and guidance and wisdom, and for information as to what was going on in the world, he had still turned to his son-in-law the archdeacon,--as he had done for nearly forty years. For so long had the archdeacon been potent as a clergyman in the diocese, and throughout the whole duration of such potency his word had been law to Mr. Harding in most of the affairs of life,--a law generally to be obeyed, and if sometimes to be broken, still a law. And now, when all was so nearly over, he would become unhappy if the archdeacon's visits were far between. Dr. Grantly, when he found that this was so, would not allow that they should be far between.

"He puts me so much in mind of my father," the archdeacon said to his wife one day.

"He is not so old as your father was when he died, by many years," said Mrs. Grantly, "and I think one sees that difference."

"Yes;--and therefore I say that he may still live for years. My father, when he took to his bed at last, was manifestly near his death. The wonder with him was that he continued to live so long. Do you not remember how the London doctor was put out because his prophecies were not fulfilled?"

"I remember it well;--as if it were yesterday."

"And in that way there is a great difference. My father, who was physically a much stronger man, did not succumb so easily. But the likeness is in their characters. There is the same mild sweetness, becoming milder and sweeter as they increased in age;--a sweetness that never could believe much evil, but that could believe less, and still less, as the weakness of age came on them. No amount of evidence would induce your father to think that Mr. Crawley stole that money." This was said of course before the telegram had come from Venice.

"As far as that goes I agree with him," said Mrs. Grantly, who had her own reasons for choosing to believe Mr. Crawley to be innocent. "If your son, my dear, is to marry a man's daughter, it will be as well that you should at least be able to say that you do not believe that man to be a thief."

"That is neither here nor there," said the archdeacon. "A jury must decide it."

"No jury in Barsetshire shall decide it for me," said Mrs. Grantly.

"I'm sick of Mr. Crawley, and I'm sorry I spoke of him," said the archdeacon. "But look at Mrs. Proudie. You'll agree that she was not the most charming woman in the world."

"She certainly was not," said Mrs. Grantly, who was anxious to encourage her husband, if she could do so without admitting anything which might injure herself afterwards.

"And she was at one time violently insolent to your father. And even the bishop thought to trample upon him. Do you remember the bishop's preaching against your father's chaunting? If I ever forget it!" And the archdeacon slapped his closed fist against his open hand.

"Don't, dear; don't. What is the good of being violent now?"

"Paltry little fool! It will be long enough before such a chaunt as that is heard in any English cathedral again." Then Mrs. Grantly got up and kissed her husband, but he, somewhat negligent of the kiss, went on with his speech. "But your father remembers nothing of it, and if there was a single human being who shed a tear in Barchester for that woman, I believe it was your father. And it was the same with mine. It came to that at last, that I could not bear to speak to him of any shortcoming as to one of his own clergymen. I might as well have pricked him with a penknife. And yet they say men become heartless and unfeeling as they grow old!"

"Some do, I suppose."

"Yes; the heartless and unfeeling do. As the bodily strength fails and the power of control becomes lessened, the natural aptitude of the man pronounces itself more clearly. I take it that that is it. Had Mrs. Proudie lived to be a hundred and fifty, she would have spoken spiteful lies on her deathbed." Then Mrs. Grantly told herself that her husband, should he live to be a hundred and fifty, would still be expressing his horror of Mrs. Proudie,--even on his deathbed.

As soon as the letter from Mrs. Arabin had reached Plumstead, the archdeacon and his wife arranged that they would both go together to the deanery. There were the double tidings to be told,--those of Mr. Crawley's assured innocence, and those also of Mrs. Arabin's instant return. And as they went together various ideas were passing through their minds in reference to the marriage of their son with Grace Crawley. They were both now reconciled to it. Mrs. Grantly had long ceased to feel any opposition to it, even though she had not seen Grace; and the archdeacon was prepared to give way. Had he not promised that in a certain case he would give way, and had not that case now come to pass? He had no wish to go back from his word. But he had a difficulty in this,--that he liked to make all the affairs of his life matter for enjoyment, almost for triumph; but how was he to be triumphant over this marriage, or how even was he to enjoy it, seeing that he had opposed it so bitterly? Those posters, though they were now pulled down, had been up on all barn ends and walls, patent--alas, too patent--to all the world of Barsetshire! "What will Mr. Crawley do now, do you suppose?" said Mrs. Grantly.

"What will he do?"

"Yes; must he go on at Hogglestock?"

"What else?" said the archdeacon.

"It is a pity something could not be done for him after all he has undergone. How on earth can he be expected to live there with a wife and family, and no private means?" To this the archdeacon made no answer. Mrs. Grantly had spoken almost immediately upon their quitting Plumstead, and the silence was continued till the carriage had entered the suburbs of the city. Then Mrs. Grantly spoke again, asking a question, with some internal trepidation, which, however, she managed to hide from her husband. "When poor papa does go, what shall you do about St. Ewold's?" Now, St. Ewold's was a rural parish lying about two miles out of Barchester, the living of which was in the gift of the archdeacon, and to which the archdeacon had presented his father-in-law, under certain circumstances, which need not be repeated in this last chronicle of Barsetshire. Have they not been written in other chronicles? "When poor papa does go, what will you do about St. Ewold's?" said Mrs. Grantly, trembling inwardly. A word too much might, as she well knew, settle the question against Mr. Crawley for ever. But were she to postpone the word till too late, the question would be settled as fatally.

"I haven't thought about it," he said sharply. "I don't like thinking of such things while the incumbent is still living." Oh, archdeacon, archdeacon! unless that other chronicle be a false chronicle, how hast thou forgotten thyself and thy past life! "Particularly not, when that incumbent is your father," said the archdeacon. Mrs. Grantly said nothing more about St. Ewold's. She would have said as much as she had intended to say if she had succeeded in making the archdeacon understand that St. Ewold's would be a very nice refuge for Mr. Crawley after all the miseries which he had endured at Hogglestock.

They learned as they entered the deanery that Mrs. Baxter had already heard of Mrs. Arabin's return. "O yes, ma'am. Mr. Harding got a letter hisself, and I got another,--separate; both from Venice, ma'am. But when master is to come, nobody seems to know." Mrs. Baxter knew that the dean had gone to Jerusalem, and was inclined to think that from such distant bournes there was no return for any traveller. The east is always further than the west in the estimation of the Mrs. Baxters of the world. Had the dean gone to Canada, she would have thought that he might come back to-morrow. But still there was the news to be told of Mr. Crawley, and there was also joy to be expressed at the sudden coming back of the much-wished-for mistress of the deanery.

"It's so good of you to come both together," said Mr. Harding.

"We thought we should be too many for you," said the archdeacon.

"Too many! O dear, no. I like to have people by me; and as for voices, and noise, and all that, the more the better. But I am weak. I'm weak in my legs. I don't think I shall ever stand again."

"Yes, you will," said the archdeacon.

"We have brought you good news," said Mrs. Grantly.

"Is it not good news that Nelly will be home this week? You can't understand what a joy it is to me. I used to think sometimes, at night, that I should never see her again. That she would come back in time was all I have had to wish for." He was lying on his back, and as he spoke he pressed his withered hands together above the bedclothes. They could not begin immediately to tell him of Mr. Crawley, but as soon as his mind had turned itself away from the thoughts of his absent daughter, Mrs. Grantly again reverted to her news.

"We have come to tell you about Mr. Crawley, papa."

"What about him?"

"He is quite innocent."

"I knew it, my dear. I always said so. Did I not always say so, archdeacon?"

"Indeed you did. I'll give you that credit."

"And is it all found out?" asked Mr. Harding.

"As far as he is concerned, everything is found out," said Mrs. Grantly. "Eleanor gave him the cheque herself."

"Nelly gave it to him?"

"Yes, papa. The dean meant her to give him fifty pounds. But it seems she got to be soft of heart and made it seventy. She had the cheque by her, and put it into the envelope with the notes."

"Some of Stringer's people seem to have stolen the cheque from Mr. Soames," said the archdeacon.

"O dear; I hope not."

"Somebody must have stolen it, papa."

"I had hoped not, Susan," said Mr. Harding. Both the archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly knew that it was useless to argue with him on such a point, and so they let that go.

Then they came to discuss Mr. Crawley's present position, and Mr. Harding ventured to ask a question or two as to Grace's chance of marriage. He did not often interfere in the family arrangements of his son-in-law,--and never did so when those family arrangements were concerned with high matters. He had hardly opened his mouth in reference to the marriage of that August lady who was now the Marchioness of Hartletop. And of the Lady Anne, the wife of the Rev. Charles Grantly, who was always prodigiously civil to him, speaking to him very loud, as though he were deaf because he was old, and bringing him cheap presents from London of which he did not take much heed,--of her he rarely said a word, or of her children, to either of his daughters. But now his grandson, Henry Grantly, was going to marry a girl of whom he felt that he might speak without impropriety. "I suppose it will be a match; won't it, my dears?"

"Not a doubt about it," said Mrs. Grantly. Mr. Harding looked at his son-in-law, but his son-in-law said nothing. The archdeacon did not even frown,--but only moved himself a little uneasily in his chair.

"Dear, dear! What a comfort that must be," said the old man.

"I have not seen her yet," said Mrs. Grantly; "but the archdeacon declares that she is all the graces rolled into one."

"I never said anything half so absurd," replied the archdeacon.

"But he really is quite in love with her, papa," said Mrs. Grantly. "He confessed to me that he gave her a kiss, and he only saw her once for five minutes."

"I should like to give her a kiss," said Mr. Harding.

"So you shall, papa, and I'll bring her here on purpose. As soon as ever the thing is settled, we mean to ask her to Plumstead."

"Do you though? How nice! How happy Henry will be!"

"And if she comes--and of course she will--I'll lose no time in bringing her over to you. Nelly must see her of course."

As they were leaving the room Mr. Harding called the archdeacon back, and taking him by the hand, spoke one word to him in a whisper. "I don't like to interfere," he said; "but might not Mr. Crawley have St. Ewold's?" The archdeacon took up the old man's hand and kissed it. Then he followed his wife out of the room, without making any answer to Mr. Harding's question.

Three days after this Mrs. Arabin reached the deanery, and the joy at her return was very great. "My dear, I have been sick for you," said Mr. Harding.

"Oh, papa, I ought not to have gone."

"Nay, my dear; do not say that. Would it make me happy that you should be a prisoner here for ever? It was only when I seemed to get so weak that I thought about it. I felt that it must be near when they bade me not to go to the cathedral any more."

"If I had been here, I could have gone with you, papa."

"It is better as it is. I know now that I was not fit for it. When your sister came to me, I never thought of remonstrating. I knew then that I had seen it for the last time."

"We need not say that yet, papa."

"I did think that when you came home we might crawl there together some warm morning. I did think of that for a time. But it will never be so, dear. I shall never see anything now that I do not see from here,--and not that for long. Do not cry, Nelly. I have nothing to regret, nothing to make me unhappy. I know how poor and weak has been my life; but I know how rich and strong is that other life. Do not cry, Nelly,--not till I am gone; and then not beyond measure. Why should any one weep for those who go away full of years,--and full of hope?"

On the day but one following the dean also reached his home. The final arrangements of his tour, as well as those of his wife, had been made to depend on Mr. Crawley's trial; for he also had been hurried back by John Eames's visit to Florence. "I should have come at once," he said to his wife, "when they wrote to ask me whether Crawley had taken the cheque from me, had anybody then told me that he was in actual trouble; but I had no idea then that they were charging him with theft."

"As far as I can learn, they never really suspected him until after your answer had come. They had been quite sure that your answer would be in the affirmative."

"What he must have endured it is impossible to conceive. I shall go out to him to-morrow."

"Would he not come to us?" said Mrs. Arabin.

"I doubt it. I will ask him, of course. I will ask them all here. This about Henry and the girl may make a difference. He has resigned the living, and some of the palace people are doing the duty."

"But he can have it again?"

"Oh, yes; he can have it again. For the matter of that, I need simply give him back his letter. Only he is so odd,--so unlike other people! And he has tried to live there, and has failed; and is now in debt. I wonder whether Grantly would give him St. Ewold's?"

"I wish he would. But you must ask him. I should not dare."

As to the matter of the cheque, the dean acknowledged to his wife at last that he had some recollection of her having told him that she had made the sum of money up to seventy pounds. "I don't feel certain of it now; but I think you may have done so." "I am quite sure I could not have done it without telling you," she replied. "At any rate you said nothing of the cheque," pleaded the dean. "I don't suppose I did," said Mrs. Arabin. "I thought that cheques were like any other money; but I shall know better for the future."

On the following morning the dean rode over to Hogglestock, and as he drew near to the house of his old friend, his spirits flagged,--for to tell the truth, he dreaded the meeting. Since the day on which he had brought Mr. Crawley from a curacy in Cornwall into the diocese of Barchester, his friend had been a trouble to him rather than a joy. The trouble had been a trouble of spirit altogether,--not at all of pocket. He would willingly have picked the Crawleys out from the pecuniary mud into which they were ever falling, time after time, had it been possible. For, though the dean was hardly to be called a rich man, his lines had fallen to him not only in pleasant places, but in easy circumstances;--and Mr. Crawley's embarrassments, though overwhelming to him, were not so great as to have been heavy to the dean. But in striving to do this he had always failed, had always suffered, and had generally been rebuked. Crawley would attempt to argue with him as to the improper allotment of Church endowments,--declaring that he did not do so with any reference to his own circumstances, but simply because the subject was one naturally interesting to clergymen. And this he would do, as he was waving off with his hand offers of immediate assistance which were indispensable. Then there had been scenes between the dean and Mrs. Crawley,--terribly painful,--and which had taken place in direct disobedience to the husband's positive injunctions. "Sir," he had once said to the dean, "I request that nothing may pass from your hands to the hands of my wife." "Tush, tush," the dean had answered. "I will have no tushing or pshawing on such a matter. A man's wife is his very own, the breath of his nostril, the blood of his heart, the rib from his body. It is for me to rule my wife, and I tell you that I will not have it." After that the gifts had come from the hands of Mrs. Arabin;--and then again, after that, in the direst hour of his need, Crawley had himself come and taken money from the dean's hands! The interview had been so painful that Arabin would hardly have been able to count the money or to know of what it had consisted, had he taken the notes and cheque out of the envelope in which his wife had put them. Since that day the two had not met each other, and since that day these new troubles had come. Arabin as yet knew but little of the manner in which they had been borne, except that Crawley had felt himself compelled to resign the living of Hogglestock. He knew nothing of Mrs. Proudie's persecution, except what he gathered from the fact of the clerical commission of which he had been informed; but he could imagine that Mrs. Proudie would not lie easy on her bed while a clergyman was doing duty almost under her nose, who was guilty of the double offence of being accused of a theft, and of having been put into his living by the dean. The dean, therefore, as he rode on, pictured to himself his old friend in a terrible condition. And it might be that even now that condition would hardly have been improved. He was no longer suspected of being a thief; but he could have no money in his pocket; and it might well be that his sufferings would have made him almost mad.

The dean also got down and left his horse at a farm-yard,--as Grantly had done with his carriage; and walked on first to the school. He heard voices inside, but could not distinguish from them whether Mr. Crawley was there or not. Slowly he opened the door, and looking round saw that Jane Crawley was in the ascendant. Jane did not know him at once, but told him when he had introduced himself that her father had gone down to Hoggle End. He had started two hours ago, but it was impossible to say when he might be back. "He sometimes stays all day long with the brickmakers," said Jane. Her mother was at home, and she would take the dean into the house. As she said this she told him that her father was sometimes better and sometimes worse. "But he has never been so very, very bad, since Henry Grantly and mamma's cousin came and told us about the cheque." That word Henry Grantly made the dean understand that there might yet be a ray of sunshine among the Crawleys.

"There is papa," said Jane, as they got to the gate. Then they waited for a few minutes till Mr. Crawley came up, very hot, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Crawley," said the dean, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you, and how rejoiced I am that this accusation has fallen off from you."

"Verily the news came in time, Arabin," said the other; "but it was a narrow pinch--a narrow pinch. Will you not enter, and see my wife?"

LXXIX. MR. CRAWLEY SPEAKS OF HIS COAT

At this time Grace had returned home from Framley. As long as the terrible tragedy of the forthcoming trial was dragging itself on she had been content to stay away, at her mother's bidding. It has not been possible in these pages to tell of all the advice that had been given to the ladies of the Crawley family in their great difficulty, and of all the assistance that had been offered. The elder Lady Lufton and the younger, and Mrs. Robarts had continually been in consultation on the subject; Mrs. Grantly's opinion had been asked and given; and even the Miss Prettymans and Mrs. Walker had found means of expressing themselves. The communications to Mrs. Crawley had been very frequent,--though they had not of course been allowed to reach the ears of Mr. Crawley. What was to be done when the living should be gone and Mr. Crawley should be in prison? Some said that he might be there for six weeks, and some for two years. Old Lady Lufton made anxious inquiries about Judge Medlicote, before whom it was said that the trial would be taken. Judge Medlicote was a Dissenter, and old Lady Lufton was in despair. When she was assured by some liberally-disposed friend that this would certainly make no difference, she shook her head woefully. "I don't know why we are to have Dissenters at all," she said, "to try people who belong to the Established Church." When she heard that Judge Medlicote would certainly be the judge, she made up her mind that two years would be the least of it. She would not have minded it, she said, if he had been a Roman Catholic. And whether the punishment might be for six weeks or for two years, what should be done with the family? Where should they be housed? how should they be fed? What should be done with the poor man when he came out of prison? It was a case in which the generous, soft-hearted old Lady Lufton was almost beside herself. "As for Grace," said young Lady Lufton, "it will be a great deal better that we should keep her amongst us. Of course she will become Mrs. Grantly, and it will be nicer for her that it should be so." In those days the posters had been seen, and the flitting to Pau had been talked of, and the Framley opinion was that Grace had better remain at Framley till she should be carried off to Pau. There were schemes, too, about Jane. But what was to be done for the wife? And what was to be done for Mr. Crawley? Then came the news from Mrs. Arabin, and all interest in Judge Medlicote was at an end.

But even now, after this great escape, what was to be done? As to Grace, she had felt the absolute necessity of being obedient to her friends,--with the consent of course of her mother,--during the great tribulation of her family. Things were so bad that she had not the heart to make them worse by giving any unnecessary trouble as to herself. Having resolved,--and having made her mother so understand,--that on one point she would guide herself by her own feelings, she was contented to go hither and thither as she was told, and to do as she was bid. Her hope was that Miss Prettyman would allow her to go back to her teaching, but it had come to be understood among them all that nothing was to be said on that subject till the trial should be over. Till that time she would be passive. But then, as I have said, had come the news from Mrs. Arabin, and Grace, with all the others, understood that there would be no trial. When this was known and acknowledged, she declared her purpose of going back to Hogglestock. She would go back at once. When asked both by Lady Lufton and by Mrs. Robarts why she was in so great a haste, she merely said that it must be so. She was, as it were, absolved from her passive obedience to Framley authorities by the diminution of the family misfortunes.

Mrs. Robarts understood the feeling by which Grace was hurried away. "Do you know why she is so obstinate?" Lady Lufton asked.

"I think I do," said Mrs. Robarts.

"And what is it?"

"Should Major Grantly renew his offer to her she is under a pledge to accept him now."

"Of course he will renew it, and of course she will accept him."

"Just so. But she prefers that he should come for her to her own house,--because of its poverty. If he chooses to seek her there, I don't think she will make much difficulty." Lady Lufton demurred to this, not however with anger, and expressed a certain amount of mild displeasure. She did not quite see why Major Grantly should not be allowed to come and do his love-making comfortably, where there was a decent dinner for him to eat, and chairs and tables and sofas and carpets. She said that she thought that something was due to Major Grantly. She was in truth a little disappointed that she was not allowed to have her own way, and to arrange the marriage at Framley under her own eye. But, through it all, she appreciated Grace; and they who knew her well and heard what she said upon the occasion, understood that her favour was not to be withdrawn. All young women were divided by old Lady Lufton into sheep and goats,--very white sheep and very black goats;--and Grace was to be a sheep. Thus it came to pass that Grace Crawley was at home when the dean visited Hogglestock. "Mamma," she said, looking out of the window, "there is the dean with papa at the gate."

"It was a narrow squeak--a very narrow squeak," Mr. Crawley had said when his friend congratulated him on his escape. The dean felt at the moment that not for many years had he heard the incumbent of Hogglestock speak either of himself or of anything else with so manifest an attempt at jocularity. Arabin had expected to find the man broken down by the weight of his sorrows, and lo! at the first moment of their first interview he himself began to ridicule them! Crawley having thus alluded to the narrow squeak had asked his visitor to enter the house and see his wife.

"Of course I will," said Arabin, "but I will speak just a word to you first." Jane, who had accompanied the dean from the school, now left them, and went into the house to her mother. "My wife cannot forgive herself about the cheque," continued he.

"There is nothing to be forgiven," said Mr. Crawley; "nothing."

"She feels that what she did was awkward and foolish. She ought never to have paid a cheque away in such a manner. She knows that now."

"It was given,--not paid," said Crawley; and as he spoke something of the black cloud came back upon his face. "And I am well aware how hard Mrs. Arabin strove to take away from the alms she bestowed the bitterness of the sting of eleemosynary aid. If you please, Arabin, we will not talk any more of that. I can never forget that I have been a beggar, but I need not make my beggary the matter of conversation. I hope the Holy Land has fulfilled your expectation?"

"It has more than done so," said the dean, bewildered by the sudden change.

"For myself, it is, of course, impossible that I should ever visit any scenes except those to which my immediate work may call me,--never in this world. The new Jerusalem is still within my reach,--if it be not forfeited by pride and obstinacy; but the old Jerusalem I can never behold. Methinks, because it is so, I would sooner stand with my foot on Mount Olivet, or drink a cup of water in the village of Bethany, than visit any other spot within the traveller's compass. The sources of the Nile, of which men now talk so much,--I see it in the papers and reviews which the ladies at Framley are so good as to send to my wife,--do not interest me much. I have no ambition to climb Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn; Rome makes my mouth water but little, nor even Athens much. I can realize without seeing all that Athens could show me, and can fancy that the existing truth would destroy more than it would build up. But to have stood on Calvary!"

"We don't know where Calvary was," said the dean.

"I fancy that I should know,--should know enough," said the illogical and unreasonable Mr. Crawley. "Is it true that you can look over from the spot on which He stood as He came across the brow of the hill, and see the huge stones of the Temple placed there by Solomon's men,--as He saw them;--right across the brook Cedron, is it not?"

"It is all there, Crawley,--just as your knowledge of it tells you."

"In the privilege of seeing those places I can almost envy a man his--money." The last word he uttered after a pause. He had been about to say that under such temptation he could almost envy a man his promotion; but he bethought himself that on such an occasion as this it would be better that he should spare the dean. "And now, if you wish it, we will go in. I fancy that I see my wife at the window, as though she were waiting for us." So saying, he strode on along the little path, and the dean was fain to follow him, even though he had said so little of all that he had intended to say.

As soon as he was with Mrs. Crawley he repeated his apology about the cheque, and found himself better able to explain himself than he could do when alone with her husband. "Of course, it has been our fault," he said.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Crawley, "how can you have been in fault when your only object was to do us good?" But, nevertheless, the dean took the blame upon his own shoulders, or, rather upon those of his wife, and declared himself to be responsible for all the trouble about the cheque.

"Let it go," said Crawley, after sitting for awhile in silence; "let it pass."

"You cannot wonder, Crawley," said the dean, "that I should have felt myself obliged to speak of it."

"For the future it will be well that it should be forgotten," said Crawley; "or, if not forgotten, treated as though forgotten. And now, dean, what must I do about the living?"

"Just resume it, as though nothing had happened."

"But that may hardly be done without the bishop's authority. I speak, of course, with deference to your higher and better information on such subjects. My experience in the taking up and laying down of livings has not been extended. But it seemeth to me that though it may certainly be in your power to nominate me again to the perpetual curacy of this parish,--presuming your patronage to be unlimited and not to reach you in rotation only,--yet the bishop may demand to institute again, and must so demand, unless he pleases to permit that my letter to him shall be revoked and cancelled."

"Of course he will do anything of that kind. He must know the circumstances as well as you and I do."

"At present they tell me that he is much afflicted by the death of his wife, and, therefore, can hardly be expected to take immediate action. There came here on the last Sunday one Mr. Snapper, his lordship's chaplain."

"We all know Snapper," said the dean. "Snapper is not a bad little fellow."

"I say nothing of his being bad, my friend, but merely mention the fact that on Sunday morning last he performed the service in our church. On the Sunday previous, one Mr. Thumble was here."

"We all know Thumble, too," said the dean; "or, at least, know something about him."

"He has been a thorn in our sides," said Mrs. Crawley, unable to restrain the expression of her dislike when Mr. Thumble's name was mentioned.

"Nay, my dear, nay;--do not allow yourself the use of language so strong against a brother. Our flesh at that time was somewhat prone to fester, and little thorns made us very sore."

"He is a horrible man," said Jane, almost in a whisper; but the words were distinctly audible by the dean.

"They need not come any more," said Arabin.

"That is where I fear we differ. I think they must come,--or some others in their place,--till the bishop shall have expressed his pleasure to the contrary. I have submitted myself to his lordship, and, having done so, feel that I cannot again go up into my pulpit till he shall have authorized me to do so. For a time, Arabin, I combated the bishop, believing,--then and now,--that he put forth his hand against me after a fashion which the law had not sanctioned. And I made bold to stand in his presence and to tell him that I would not obey him, except in things legal. But afterwards, when he proceeded formally, through the action of a commission, I submitted myself. And I regard myself still as being under submission."

It was impossible to shake him. Arabin remained there for more than an hour, trying to pass on to another subject, but being constantly brought back by Mr. Crawley himself to the fact of his own dependent position. Nor would he condescend to supplicate the bishop. It was, he surmised, the duty of Dr. Tempest, together with the other four clergymen, to report to the bishop on the question of the alleged theft; and then doubtless the bishop, when he had duly considered the report, and,--as Mr. Crawley seemed to think was essentially necessary,--had sufficiently recovered from the grief at his wife's death, would, at his leisure, communicate his decision to Mr. Crawley. Nothing could be more complete than Mr. Crawley's humility in reference to the bishop; and he never seemed to be tired of declaring that he had submitted himself!

And then the dean, finding it to be vain to expect to be left alone with Mr. Crawley for a moment,--in vain also to wait for a proper opening for that which he had to say,--rushed violently at his other subject. "And now, Mrs. Crawley," he said, "Mrs. Arabin wishes you all to come over to the deanery for a while and stay with us."

"Mrs. Arabin is too kind," said Mrs. Crawley, looking across at her husband.

"We should like it of all things," said the dean, with perhaps more of good nature than of truth. "Of course you must have been knocked about a good deal."

"Indeed we have," said Mrs. Crawley.

"And till you are somewhat settled again, I think that the change of scene would be good for all of you. Come, Crawley, I'll talk to you every evening about Jerusalem for as long as you please;--and then there will perhaps come back to us something of the pleasantness of old days." As she heard this Mrs. Crawley's eyes became full of tears, and she could not altogether hide them. What she had endured during the last four months had almost broken her spirit. The burden had at last been too heavy for her strength. "You cannot fancy, Crawley, how often I have thought of the old days and wished that they might return. I have found it very hard to get an opportunity of saying so much to you; but I will say it now."

"It may hardly be as you say," said Crawley, grimly.

"You mean that the old days can never be brought back?"

"Assuredly they cannot. But it was not that that I meant. It may not be that I and mine should transfer ourselves to your roof and sojourn there."

"Why should you not?"

"The reasons are many, and on the face of things. The reason, perhaps, the most on the face is to be found in my wife's gown, and in my coat." This Mr. Crawley said very gravely, looking neither to the right nor to the left, nor at the face of any of them, nor at his own garment, nor at hers, but straight before him; and when he had so spoken he said not a word further,--not going on to dilate on his poverty as the dean expected that he would do.

"At such a time such reasons should stand for nothing," said the dean.

"And why not now as they always do, and always must till the power of tailors shall have waned, and the daughters of Eve shall toil and spin no more? Like to like is true, and should be held to be true, of all societies and of all compacts for co-operation and mutual living. Here, where, if I may venture to say so, you and I are like to like;--for the new gloss of your coat,"--the dean, as it happened, had on at the moment a very old coat, his oldest coat, selected perhaps with some view to this special visit,--"does not obtrude itself in my household, as would the threadbare texture of mine in yours;--I can open my mouth to you and converse with you at my ease; you are now to me that Frank Arabin who has so often comforted me and so often confuted me; whom I may perhaps on an occasion have confuted--and perhaps have comforted. But were I sitting with you in your library in Barchester, my threadbare coat would be too much for me. I should be silent, if not sullen. I should feel the weight of all my poverty, and the greater weight of all your wealth. For my children, let them go. I have come to know that they will be better away from me."

"Papa!" said Jane.

"Papa does not mean it," said Grace, coming up to him and standing close to him.

There was silence amongst them for a few moments, and then the master of the house shook himself,--literally shook himself, till he had shaken off the cloud. He had taken Grace by the hand, and thrusting out the other arm had got it round Jane's waist. "When a man has girls, Arabin," he said, "as you have, but not big girls yet like Grace here, of course he knows that they will fly away."

"I shall not fly away," said Jane.

"I don't know what papa means," said Grace.

Upon the whole the dean thought it the pleasantest visit he had ever made to Hogglestock, and when he got home he told his wife that he believed that the accusation made against Mr. Crawley had done him good. "I could not say a word in private to her," he said, "but I did promise that you would go and see her." On the very next day Mrs. Arabin went over, and I think that the visit was a comfort to Mrs. Crawley.

LXXX. MISS DEMOLINES DESIRES TO BECOME A FINGER-POST

John Eames had passed Mrs. Thorne in the hall of her own house almost without noticing her as he took his departure from Lily Dale. She had told him as plainly as words could speak that she could not bring herself to be his wife,--and he had believed her. He had sworn to himself that if he did not succeed now he would never ask her again. "It would be foolish and unmanly to do so," he said to himself as he rushed along the street towards his club. No! That romance was over. At last there had come an end to it! "It has taken a good bit out of me," he said, arresting his steps suddenly that he might stand still and think of it all. "By George, yes! A man doesn't go through that kind of thing without losing some of the caloric. I couldn't do it again if an angel came in my way." He went to his club, and tried to be jolly. He ordered a good dinner, and got some man to come and dine with him. For an hour or so he held himself up, and did appear to be jolly. But as he walked home at night, and gave himself time to think over what had taken place with deliberation, he stopped in the gloom of a deserted street and leaning against the rails burst into tears. He had really loved her and she was never to be his. He had wanted her,--and it is so painful a thing to miss what you want when you have done your very best to obtain it! To struggle in vain always hurts the pride; but the wound made by the vain struggle for a woman is sorer than any other wound so made. He gnashed his teeth, and struck the iron railings with his stick;--and then he hurried home, swearing that he would never give another thought to Lily Dale. In the dead of the night, thinking of it still, he asked himself whether it would not be a fine thing to wait another ten years, and then go to her again. In such a way would he not make himself immortal as a lover beyond any Jacob or any Leander?

The next day he went to his office and was very grave. When Sir Raffle complimented him on being back before his time, he simply said that when he had accomplished that for which he had gone, he had, of course, come back. Sir Raffle could not get a word out from him about Mr. Crawley. He was very grave, and intent upon his work. Indeed he was so serious that he quite afflicted Sir Raffle,--whose mock activity felt itself to be confounded by the official zeal of his private secretary. During the whole of that day Johnny was resolving that there could be no cure for his malady but hard work. He would not only work hard at the office if he remained there, but he would take to heavy reading. He rather thought that he would go deep into Greek and do a translation, or take up the exact sciences and make a name for himself that way. But as he had enough for the life of a secluded literary man without his salary, he rather thought that he would give up his office altogether. He had a mutton chop at home that evening, and spent his time in endeavouring to read out loud to himself certain passages from the Iliad;--for he had bought a Homer as he returned from his office. At nine o'clock he went, half-price, to the Strand Theatre. How he met there his old friend Boulger and went afterwards to "The Cock" and had a supper need not here be told with more accurate detail.

On the evening of the next day he was bound by his appointment to go to Porchester Terrace. In the moments of his enthusiasm about Homer he had declared to himself that he would never go near Miss Demolines again. Why should he? All that kind of thing was nothing to him now. He would simply send her his compliments and say that he was prevented by business from keeping his engagement. She, of course, would go on writing to him for a time, but he would simply leave her letters unanswered, and the thing, of course, would come to an end at last. He afterwards said something to Boulger about Miss Demolines,--but that was during the jollity of their supper,--and he then declared that he would follow out that little game. "I don't see why a fellow isn't to amuse himself, eh, Boulger, old boy?" Boulger winked and grinned, and said that some amusements were dangerous. "I don't think that there is any danger there," said Johnny. "I don't believe she is thinking of that kind of thing herself;--not with me at least. What she likes is the pretence of a mystery; and as it is amusing I don't see why a fellow shouldn't indulge her." But that determination was pronounced after two mutton chops at "The Cock," between one and two o'clock in the morning. On the next day he was cooler and wiser. Greek he thought might be tedious as he discovered that he would have to begin again from the very alphabet. He would therefore abandon that idea. Greek was not the thing for him, but he would take up the sanitary condition of the poor in London. A fellow could be of some use in that way. In the meantime he would keep his appointment with Miss Demolines, simply because it was an appointment. A gentleman should always keep his word to a lady!

He did keep his appointment with Miss Demolines, and was with her almost precisely at the hour she had named. She received him with a mysterious tranquillity which almost perplexed him. He remembered, however, that the way to enjoy the society of Miss Demolines was to take her in all her moods with perfect seriousness, and was therefore very tranquil himself. On the present occasion she did not rise as he entered the room, and hardly spoke as she tendered to him the tips of her fingers to be touched. As she said almost nothing, he said nothing at all, but sank into a chair and stretched his legs out comfortably before him. It had been always understood between them that she was to bear the burden of the conversation.

"You'll have a cup of tea?" she said.

"Yes;--if you do." Then the page brought the tea, and John Eames amused himself with swallowing three slices of very thin bread and butter.

"None for me,--thanks," said Madalina. "I rarely eat after dinner, and not often much then. I fancy that I should best like a world in which there was no eating."

"A good dinner is a very good thing," said John. And then there was again silence. He was aware that some great secret was to be told to him during this evening, but he was much too discreet to show any curiosity upon that subject. He sipped his tea to the end, and then, having got up to put his cup down, stood on the rug with his back to the fire. "Have you been out to-day?" he asked.

"Indeed I have."

"And you are tired?"

"Very tired!"

"Then perhaps I had better not keep you up."

"Your remaining will make no difference in that respect. I don't suppose that I shall be in bed for the next four hours. But do as you like about going."

"I am in no hurry," said Johnny. Then he sat down again, stretched out his legs and made himself comfortable.

"I have been to see that woman," said Madalina after a pause.

"What woman?"

"Maria Clutterbuck,--as I must always call her; for I cannot bring myself to pronounce the name of that poor wretch who was done to death."

"He blew his brains out in delirium tremens," said Johnny.

"And what made him drink?" said Madalina with emphasis. "Never mind. I decline altogether to speak of it. Such a scene as I have had! I was driven at last to tell her what I thought of her. Anything so callous, so heartless, so selfish, so stone-cold, and so childish, I never saw before! That Maria was childish and selfish I always knew;--but I thought there was some heart,--a vestige of heart. I found to-day that there was none,--none. If you please we won't speak of her any more."

"Certainly not," said Johnny.

"You need not wonder that I am tired and feverish."

"That sort of thing is fatiguing, I dare say. I don't know whether we do not lose more than we gain by those strong emotions."

"I would rather die and go beneath the sod at once, than live without them," said Madalina.

"It's a matter of taste," said Johnny.

"It is there that that poor wretch is so deficient. She is thinking now, this moment, of nothing but her creature comforts. That tragedy has not even stirred her pulses."

"If her pulses were stirred ever so, that would not make her happy."

"Happy! Who is happy? Are you happy?"

Johnny thought of Lily Dale and paused before he answered. No; certainly he was not happy. But he was not going to talk about his unhappiness to Miss Demolines! "Of course I am;--as jolly as a sandboy," he said.

"Mr. Eames," said Madalina raising herself on her sofa, "if you can not express yourself in language more suitable to the occasion and to the scene than that, I think that you had better--"

"Hold my tongue."

"Just so;--though I should not have chosen myself to use words so abruptly discourteous."

"What did I say;--jolly as a sandboy? There is nothing wrong in that. What I meant was, that I think that this world is a very good sort of world, and that a man can get along in it very well, if he minds his p's and q's."

"But suppose it's a woman?"

"Easier still."

"And suppose she does not mind her p's and q's?"

"Women always do."

"Do they? Your knowledge of women goes as far as that, does it? Tell me fairly;--do you think you know anything about women?" Madalina as she asked the question, looked full into his face, and shook her locks and smiled. When she shook her locks and smiled, there was a certain attraction about her of which John Eames was fully sensible. She could throw a special brightness into her eyes, which, though it probably betokened nothing truly beyond ill-natured mischief, seemed to convey a promise of wit and intellect.

"I don't mean to make any boast about it," said Johnny.

"I doubt whether you know anything. The pretty simplicity of your excellent Lily Dale has sufficed for you."

"Never mind about her," said Johnny impatiently.

"I do not mind about her in the least. But an insight into that sort of simplicity will not teach you the character of a real woman. You cannot learn the flavour of wines by sipping sherry and water. For myself I do not think that I am simple. I own it fairly. If you must have simplicity, I cannot be to your taste."

"Nobody likes partridge always," said Johnny laughing.

"I understand you, sir. And though what you say is not complimentary, I am willing to forgive that fault for its truth. I don't consider myself to be always partridge, I can assure you. I am as changeable as the moon."

"And as fickle?"

"I say nothing about that, sir. I leave you to find that out. It is a man's business to discover that for himself. If you really do know aught of women--"

"I did not say that I did."

"But if you do, you will perhaps have discovered that a woman may be as changeable as the moon, and yet as true as the sun;--that she may flit from flower to flower, quite unheeding while no passion exists, but that a passion fixes her at once. Do you believe me?" Now she looked into his eyes again, but did not smile and did not shake her locks.

"Oh yes;--that's true enough. And when they have a lot of children, then they become steady as milestones."

"Children!" said Madalina, getting up and walking about the room.

"They do have them you know," said Johnny.

"Do you mean to say, sir, that I should be a milestone?"

"A finger-post," said Johnny, "to show a fellow the way he ought to go."

She walked twice across the room without speaking. Then she came and stood opposite to him, still without speaking,--and then she walked about again. "What could a woman better be, than a finger-post, as you call it, with such a purpose?"

"Nothing better, of course;--though a milestone to tell a fellow his distances, is very good."

"Psha!"

"You don't like the idea of being a milestone."

"No!"

"Then you can make up your mind to be a finger-post."

"John, shall I be a finger-post for you?" She stood and looked at him for a moment or two, with her eyes full of love, as though she were going to throw herself into his arms. And she would have done so, no doubt, instantly, had he risen to his legs. As it was, after having gazed at him for the moment with her love-laden eyes, she flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face among the cushions.

He had felt that it was coming for the last quarter of an hour,--and he had felt, also, that he was quite unable to help himself. He did not believe that he should ever be reduced to marrying Miss Demolines, but he did see plainly enough that he was getting into trouble; and yet, for his life, he could not help himself. The moth who flutters round the light knows that he is being burned, and yet he cannot fly away from it. When Madalina had begun to talk to him about women in general, and then about herself, and had told him that such a woman as herself,--even one so liable to the disturbance of violent emotions,--might yet be as true and honest as the sun, he knew that he ought to get up and make his escape. He did not exactly know how the catastrophe would come, but he was quite sure that if he remained there he would be called upon in some way for a declaration of his sentiments,--and that the call would be one which all his wit would not enable him to answer with any comfort. It was very well jesting about milestones, but every jest brought him nearer to the precipice. He perceived that however ludicrous might be the image which his words produced, she was clever enough in some way to turn that image to her own purpose. He had called a woman a finger-post, and forthwith she had offered to come to him and be finger-post to him for life! What was he to say to her? It was clear that he must say something. As at this moment she was sobbing violently, he could not pass the offer by as a joke. Women will say that his answer should have been very simple, and his escape very easy. But men will understand that it is not easy to reject even a Miss Demolines when she offers herself for matrimony. And, moreover,--as Johnny bethought himself at this crisis of his fate,--Lady Demolines was no doubt at the other side of the drawing-room door, ready to stop him, should he attempt to run away. In the meantime the sobs on the sofa became violent, and still more violent. He had not even yet made up his mind what to do, when Madalina, springing to her feet, stood before him, with her curls wildly waving and her arms extended. "Let it be as though it were unsaid," she exclaimed. John Eames had not the slightest objection; but, nevertheless, there was a difficulty even in this. Were he simply to assent to this latter proposition, it could not be but that the feminine nature of Miss Demolines would be outraged by so uncomplimentary an acquiescence. He felt that he ought at least to hesitate a little,--to make some pretence at closing upon the rich offer that had been made to him; only that were he to show any such pretence the rich offer would, no doubt, be repeated. His Madalina had twitted him in the earlier part of their interview with knowing nothing of the nature of women. He did know enough to feel assured that any false step on his part now would lead him into very serious difficulties. "Let it be as though it were unsaid! Why, oh, why, have I betrayed myself?" exclaimed Madalina.

John now had risen from his chair, and coming up to her took her by the arm and spoke a word. "Compose yourself," he said. He spoke in his most affectionate voice, and he stood very close to her.

"How easy it is to bid me do that," said Madalina. "Tell the sea to compose itself when it rages!"

"Madalina!" said he.

"Well,--what of Madalina? Madalina has lost her own respect,--for ever."

"Do not say that."

"Oh, John,--why did you ever come here? Why? Why did we meet at that fatal woman's house? Or, meeting so, why did we not part as strangers? Sir, why have you come here to my mother's house day after day, evening after evening, if--. Oh, heavens, what am I saying? I wonder whether you will scorn me always?"

"I will never scorn you."

"And you will pardon me?"

"Madalina, there is nothing to pardon."

"And--you will love me?" Then, without waiting for any more encouraging reply,--unable, probably, to wait a moment longer, she sunk upon his bosom. He caught her, of course,--and at that moment the drawing-room door was opened, and Lady Demolines entered the chamber. John Eames detected at a glance the skirt of the old white dressing gown which he had seen whisking away on the occasion of his last visit at Porchester Terrace. But on the present occasion Lady Demolines wore over it a short red opera cloak, and the cap on her head was ornamented with coloured ribbons. "What is this," she said, "and why am I thus disturbed?" Madalina lay motionless in Johnny's arms, while the old woman glowered at him from under the coloured ribbons. "Mr. Eames, what is it that I behold?" she said.

"Your daughter, madam, seems to be a little unwell," said Johnny. Madalina kept her feet firm upon the ground, but did not for a moment lose her purchase against Johnny's waistcoat. Her respirations came very strong, but they came a good deal stronger when he mentioned the fact that she was not so well as she might be.

"Unwell!" said Lady Demolines. And John was stricken at the moment with a conviction that her ladyship must have passed the early years of her life upon the stage. "You would trifle with me, sir. Beware that you do not trifle with her,--with Madalina!"

"My mother," said Madalina; but still she did not give up her purchase, and the voice seemed to come half from her and half from Johnny. "Come to me, my mother." Then Lady Demolines hastened to her daughter, and Madalina between them was gradually laid at her length upon the sofa. The work of laying her out, however, was left almost entirely to the stronger arm of Mr. John Eames. "Thanks, mother," said Madalina; but she had not as yet opened her eyes, even for an instant. "Perhaps I had better go now," said Johnny. The old woman looked at him with eyes which asked him whether "he didn't wish he might get it" as plainly as though the words had been pronounced. "Of course I'll wait if I can be of any service," said Johnny.

"I must know more of this, sir, before you leave the house," said Lady Demolines. He saw that between them both there might probably be a very bad quarter of an hour in store for him; but he swore to himself that no union of dragon and tigress should extract from him a word that could be taken as a promise of marriage.

The old woman was now kneeling by the head of the sofa, and Johnny was standing close by her side. Suddenly Madalina opened her eyes,--opened them very wide and gazed around her. Then slowly she raised herself on the sofa, and turned her face first upon her mother and then upon Johnny. "You here, mamma!" she said.

"Dearest one, I am near you. Be not afraid," said her ladyship.

"Afraid! Why should I be afraid? John! My own John! Mamma, he is my own." And she put out her arms to him, as though calling to him to come to her. Things were now very bad with John Eames,--so bad that he would have given a considerable lump out of Lord De Guest's legacy to be able to escape at once into the street. The power of a woman, when she chooses to use it recklessly, is, for the moment, almost unbounded.

"I hope you find yourself a little better," said John, struggling to speak, as though he were not utterly crushed by the occasion.

Lady Demolines slowly raised herself from her knees, helping herself with her hands against the shoulder of the sofa,--for though still very clever, she was old and stiff,--and then offered both her hands to Johnny. Johnny cautiously took one of them, finding himself unable to decline them both. "My son!" she exclaimed; and before he knew where he was the old woman had succeeded in kissing his nose and his whiskers. "My son!" she said again.

Now the time had come for facing the dragon and the tigress in their wrath. If they were to be faced at all, the time for facing them had certainly arrived. I fear that John's heart sank low in his bosom at that moment. "I don't quite understand," he said, almost in a whisper. Madalina put out one arm towards him, and the fingers trembled. Her lips were opened, and the white row of interior ivory might be seen plainly; but at the present conjuncture of affairs she spoke not a word. She spoke not a word; but her arm remained stretched out towards him, and her fingers did not cease to tremble.

"You do not understand!" said Lady Demolines, drawing herself back, and looking, in her short open cloak, like a knight who has donned his cuirass, but has forgotten to put on his leg-gear. And she shook the bright ribbons of her cap, as a knight in his wrath shakes the crest of his helmet. "You do not understand, Mr. Eames! What is it, sir, that you do not understand?"

"There is some misconception, I mean," said Johnny.

"Mother!" said Madalina, turning her eyes from her recreant lover to her tender parent; trembling all over, but still keeping her hand extended. "Mother!"

"My darling! But leave him to me, dearest. Compose yourself."

"'Twas the word that he said--this moment; before he pressed me to his heart."

"I thought you were fainting," said Johnny.

"Sir!" And Lady Demolines, as she spoke, shook her crest, and glared at him, and almost flew at him in her armour.

"It may be that nature has given way with me, and that I have been in a dream," said Madalina.

"That which mine eyes saw was no dream," said Lady Demolines. "Mr. Eames, I have given to you the sweetest name that can fall from an old woman's lips. I have called you my son."

"Yes, you did, I know. But, as I said before, there is some mistake. I know how proud I ought to be, and how happy, and all that kind of thing. But--" Then there came a screech from Madalina, which would have awakened the dead, had there been any dead in that house. The page and the cook, however, took no notice of it, whether they were awakened or not. And having screeched, Madalina stood erect upon the floor, and she also glared upon her recreant lover. The dragon and the tiger were there before him now, and he knew that it behoved him to look to himself. As he had a battle to fight, might it not be best to put a bold face upon it? "The truth is," said he, "that I don't understand this kind of thing at all."

"Not understand it, sir?" said the dragon.

"Leave him to me, mother," said the tigress, shaking her head again, but with a kind of shake differing from that which she had used before. "This is my business, and I'll have it out for myself. If he thinks I'm going to put up with his nonsense he's mistaken. I've been straightforward and above board with you, Mr. Eames, and I expect to be treated in the same way in return. Do you mean to tell my mother that you deny that we are engaged?"

"Well; yes; I do. I'm very sorry, you know, if I seem to be uncivil--"

"It's because I've no brother," said the tigress. "He thinks that I have no man near me to protect me. But he shall find that I can protect myself. John Eames, why are you treating me like this?"

"I shall consult my cousin the serjeant to-morrow," said the dragon. "In the meantime he must remain in this house. I shall not allow the front door to be unlocked for him."

This, I think, was the bitterest moment of all to Johnny. To be confined all night in Lady Demolines' drawing-room would, of itself, be an intolerable nuisance. And then the absurdity of the thing, and the story that would go abroad! And what should he say to the dragon's cousin the serjeant, if the serjeant should be brought upon the field before he was able to escape from it? He did not know what a serjeant might not do to him in such circumstances. There was one thing no serjeant should do, and no dragon! Between them all they should never force him to marry the tigress. At this moment Johnny heard a tramp along the pavement, and he rushed to the window. Before the dragon or even the tigress could arrest him, he had thrown up the sash, and had appealed in his difficulty to the guardian of the night. "I say, old fellow," said Johnny, "don't you stir from that till I tell you." The policeman turned his bull's-eye upon the window, and stood perfectly motionless. "Now, if you please, I'll say good-night," said Johnny. But, as he spoke, he still held the open window in his hand.

"What means this violence in my house?" said the dragon.

"Mamma, you had better let him go," said the tigress. "We shall know where to find him."

"You will certainly be able to find me," said Johnny.

"Go," said the dragon, shaking her crest,--shaking all her armour at him, "dastard, go!"

"Policeman," shouted Johnny, while he still held the open window in his hand, "mind you don't stir till I come out." The bull's-eye was shifted a little, but the policeman spoke never a word.

"I wish you good-night, Lady Demolines," said Johnny. "Good-night, Miss Demolines." Then he left the window and made a run for the door. But the dragon was there before him.

"Let him go, mamma," said the tigress as she closed the window. "We shall only have a rumpus."

"That will be all," said Johnny. "There isn't the slightest use in your trying to keep me here."

"And are we never to see you again?" said the tigress, almost languishing again with one eye.

"Well; no. What would be the use? No man likes to be shut in, you know."

"Go then," said the tigress; "but if you think that this is to be the end of it, you'll find yourself wonderfully mistaken. You poor false, drivelling creature! Lily Dale won't touch you with a pair of tongs. It's no use your going to her."

"Go away, sir, this moment, and don't contaminate my room an instant longer by your presence," said the dragon, who had observed through the window that the bull's-eye was still in full force before the house. Then John Eames withdrew, and descending into the hall made his way in the dark to the front door. For aught he knew there might still be treachery in regard to the lock; but his heart was comforted as he heard the footfall of the policeman on the door-step. With much fumbling he succeeded at last in turning the key and drawing the bolt, and then he found himself at liberty in the street. Before he even spoke a word to the policeman he went out into the road and looked up at the window. He could just see the figure of the dragon's helmet as she was closing the shutters. It was the last he ever saw of Lady Demolines or of her daughter.

"What was it all about?" said the policeman.

"I don't know that I can just tell you," said Johnny, searching in his pocket-book for half a sovereign which he tendered to the man. "There was a little difficulty, and I'm obliged to you for waiting."

"There ain't nothing wrong?" said the man suspiciously, hesitating for a moment before he accepted the coin.

"Nothing on earth. I'll wait with you, while you have the house opened and inquire, if you wish it. The truth is somebody inside refused to have the door opened, and I didn't want to stay there all night."

"They're a rummy couple, if what I hear is true."

"They are a rummy couple," said Johnny.

"I suppose it's all right," said the policeman, taking the money. And then John walked off home by himself, turning in his mind all the circumstances of his connection with Miss Demolines. Taking his own conduct as a whole, he was rather proud of it; but he acknowledged to himself that it would be well that he should keep himself free from the society of Madalinas for the future.

LXXXI. BARCHESTER CLOISTERS

On the morning of the Sunday after the dean's return Mr. Harding was lying in his bed, and Posy was sitting on the bed beside him. It was manifest to all now that he became feebler and feebler from day to day, and that he would never leave his bed again. Even the archdeacon had shaken his head, and had acknowledged to his wife that the last day for her father was near at hand. It would very soon be necessary that he should select another vicar for St. Ewolds.

"Grandpa won't play cat's-cradle," said Posy, as Mrs. Arabin entered the room.

"No, darling,--not this morning," said the old man. He himself knew well enough that he would never play cat's-cradle again. Even that was over for him now.

"She teases you, papa," said Mrs. Arabin.

"No, indeed," said he. "Posy never teases me;" and he slowly moved his withered hand down outside the bed, so as to hold the child by her frock. "Let her stay with me, my dear."

"Dr. Filgrave is downstairs, papa. You will see him, if he comes up?" Now Dr. Filgrave was the leading physician of Barchester, and nobody of note in the city,--or for the matter of that in the eastern division of the county,--was allowed to start upon the last great journey without some assistance from him as the hour of going drew nigh. I do not know that he had much reputation for prolonging life, but he was supposed to add a grace to the hour of departure. Mr. Harding had expressed no wish to see the doctor,--had rather declared his conviction that Dr. Filgrave could be of no possible service to him. But he was not a man to persevere in his objection in opposition to the wishes of the friends around him; and as soon as the archdeacon had spoken a word on the subject he assented.

"Of course, my dear, I will see him."

"And Posy shall come back when he has gone," said Mrs. Arabin.

"Posy will do me more good than Dr. Filgrave I am quite sure;--but Posy shall go now." So Posy scrambled off the bed, and the doctor was ushered into the room.

"A day or two will see the end of it, Mr. Archdeacon;--I should say a day or two," said the doctor, as he met Dr. Grantly in the hall. "I should say that a day or two would see the end of it. Indeed I will not undertake that twenty-four hours may not see the close of his earthly troubles. He has no suffering, no pain, no disturbing cause. Nature simply retires to rest." Dr. Filgrave, as he said this, made a slow falling motion with his hands, which alone on various occasions had been thought to be worth all the money paid for his attendance. "Perhaps you would wish that I should step in in the evening, Mr. Dean? As it happens, I shall be at liberty." The dean of course said that he would take it as an additional favour. Neither the dean nor the archdeacon had the slightest belief in Dr. Filgrave, and yet they would hardly have been contented that their father-in-law should have departed without him.

"Look at that man, now," said the archdeacon, when the doctor had gone, "who talks so glibly about nature going to rest. I've known him all my life. He's an older man by some months than our dear old friend upstairs. And he looks as if he were going to attend death-beds in Barchester for ever."

"I suppose he is right in what he tells us now?" said the dean.

"No doubt he is; but my belief doesn't come from his saying it." Then there was a pause as the two church dignitaries sat together, doing nothing, feeling that the solemnity of the moment was such that it would be hardly becoming that they should even attempt to read. "His going will make an old man of me," said the archdeacon. "It will be different with you."

"It will make an old woman of Eleanor, I fear."

"I seem to have known him all my life," said the archdeacon. "I have known him ever since I left college; and I have known him as one man seldom knows another. There is nothing that he has done,--as I believe, nothing that he has thought,--with which I have not been cognizant. I feel sure that he never had an impure fancy in his mind, or a faulty wish in his heart. His tenderness has surpassed the tenderness of woman; and yet, when an occasion came for showing it, he had all the spirit of a hero. I shall never forget his resignation of the hospital, and all that I did and said to make him keep it."

"But he was right?"

"As Septimus Harding he was, I think, right; but it would have been wrong in any other man. And he was right, too, about the deanery." For promotion had once come in Mr. Harding's way, and he, too, might have been Dean of Barchester. "The fact is, he never was wrong. He couldn't go wrong. He lacked guile, and he feared God,--and a man who does both will never go far astray. I don't think he ever coveted aught in his life,--except a new case for his violoncello and somebody to listen to him when he played it." Then the archdeacon got up, and walked about the room in his enthusiasm; and, perhaps, as he walked some thoughts as to the sterner ambition of his own life passed through his mind. What things had he coveted? Had he lacked guile? He told himself that he had feared God,--but he was not sure that he was telling himself true even in that.

During the whole of the morning Mrs. Arabin and Mrs. Grantly were with their father, and during the greater part of the day there was absolute silence in the room. He seemed to sleep; and they, though they knew that in truth he was not sleeping, feared to disturb him by a word. About two Mrs. Baxter brought him his dinner, and he did rouse himself, and swallowed a spoonful or two of soup and half a glass of wine. At this time Posy came to him, and stood at the bedside, looking at him with her great wide eyes. She seemed to be aware that life had now gone so far with her dear old friend that she must not be allowed to sit upon his bed again. But he put his hand out to her, and she held it, standing quite still and silent. When Mrs. Baxter came to take away the tray, Posy's mother got up, and whispered a word to the child. Then Posy went away, and her eyes never beheld the old man again. That was a day which Posy will never forget,--not though she should live to be much older than her grandfather was when she thus left him.

"It is so sweet to have you both here," he said, when he had been lying silent for nearly an hour after the child had gone. Then they got up, and came and stood close to him. "There is nothing left for me to wish, my dears;--nothing." Not long after that he expressed a desire that the two husbands,--his two sons-in-law,--should come to him; and Mrs. Arabin went to them, and brought them to the room. As he took their hands he merely repeated the same words again. "There is nothing left for me to wish, my dears;--nothing." He never spoke again above his breath; but ever and anon his daughters, who watched him, could see that he was praying. The two men did not stay with him long, but returned to the gloom of the library. The gloom had almost become the darkness of night, and they were still sitting there without any light, when Mrs. Baxter entered the room. "The dear gentleman is no more," said Mrs. Baxter; and it seemed to the archdeacon that the very moment of his father's death had repeated itself. When Dr. Filgrave called he was told that his services could be of no further use. "Dear, dear!" said the doctor. "We are all dust, Mrs. Baxter; are we not?" There were people in Barchester who pretended to know how often the doctor had repeated this little formula during the last thirty years.

There was no violence of sorrow in the house that night; but there were aching hearts, and one heart so sore that it seemed that no cure for its anguish could ever reach it. "He has always been with me," Mrs. Arabin said to her husband, as he strove to console her. "It was not that I loved him better than Susan, but I have felt so much more of his loving tenderness. The sweetness of his voice has been in my ears almost daily since I was born."

They buried him in the cathedral which he had loved so well, and in which nearly all the work of his life had been done; and all Barchester was there to see him laid in his grave within the cloisters. There was no procession of coaches, no hearse, nor was there any attempt at funereal pomp. From the dean's side door, across the vaulted passage, and into the transept,--over the little step upon which he had so nearly fallen when last he made his way out of the building,--the coffin was carried on men's shoulders. It was but a short journey from his bedroom to his grave. But the bell had been tolling sadly all the morning, and the nave and the aisles and the transepts, close up to the door leading from the transept into the cloister, were crowded with those who had known the name and the figure and the voice of Mr. Harding as long as they had known anything. Up to this day no one would have said specially that Mr. Harding was a favourite in the town. He had never been forward enough in anything to become the acknowledged possessor of popularity. But, now that he was gone, men and women told each other how good he had been. They remembered the sweetness of his smile, and talked of loving little words which he had spoken to them,--either years ago or the other day, for his words had always been loving. The dean and the archdeacon came first, shoulder to shoulder, and after them came their wives. I do not know that it was the proper order for mourning, but it was a touching sight to be seen, and was long remembered in Barchester. Painful as it was for them, the two women would be there, and the two sisters would walk together;--nor would they go before their husbands. Then there were the archdeacon's two sons,--for the Rev. Charles Grantly had come to Plumstead on the occasion. And in the vaulted passage which runs between the deanery and the end of the transept all the chapter, with the choir, the prebendaries, with the fat old chancellor, the precentor, and the minor canons down to the little choristers,--they all were there, and followed in at the transept door, two by two. And in the transept they were joined by another clergyman whom no one had expected to see that day. The bishop was there, looking old and worn,--almost as though he were unconscious of what he was doing. Since his wife's death no one had seen him out of the palace or of the palace grounds till that day. But there he was,--and they made way for him into the procession behind the two ladies,--and the archdeacon, when he saw it, resolved that there should be peace in his heart, if peace might be possible.

They made their way into the cloisters where the grave had been dug,--as many as might be allowed to follow. The place indeed was open to all who chose to come; but they who had only slightly known the man, refrained from pressing upon those who had a right to stand around his coffin. But there was one other there whom the faithful chronicler of Barchester should mention. Before any other one had reached the spot, the sexton and the verger between them had led in between them, among the graves beneath the cloisters, a blind man, very old, with a wondrous stoop, but who must have owned a grand stature before extreme old age had bent him, and they placed him sitting on a stone in the corner of the archway. But as soon as the shuffling of steps reached his ears, he raised himself with the aid of his stick, and stood during the service leaning against the pillar. The blind man was so old that he might almost have been Mr. Harding's father. This was John Bunce, a bedesman from Hiram's Hospital,--and none perhaps there had known Mr. Harding better than he had known him. When the earth had been thrown on to the coffin, and the service was over, and they were about to disperse, Mrs. Arabin went up to the old man, and taking his hand between hers whispered a word into his ear. "Oh, Miss Eleanor," he said. "Oh, Miss Eleanor!" Within a fortnight he also was lying within the cathedral precincts.

And so they buried Mr. Septimus Harding, formerly Warden of Hiram's Hospital in the city of Barchester, of whom the chronicler may say that that city never knew a sweeter gentleman or a better Christian.

LXXXII. THE LAST SCENE AT HOGGLESTOCK

The fortnight following Mr. Harding's death was passed very quietly at Hogglestock, for during that time no visitor made an appearance in the parish except Mr. Snapper on the Sundays. Mr. Snapper, when he had completed the service on the first of these Sundays, intimated to Mr. Crawley his opinion that probably that gentleman might himself wish to resume the duties on the following Sabbath. Mr. Crawley, however, courteously declined to do anything of the kind. He said that it was quite out of the question that he should do so without a direct communication made to him from the bishop, or by the bishop's order. The assizes had, of course, gone by, and all question of the trial was over. Nevertheless,--as Mr. Snapper said,--the bishop had not, as yet, given any order. Mr. Snapper was of opinion that the bishop in these days was not quite himself. He had spoken to the bishop about it and the bishop had told him peevishly--"I must say quite peevishly," Mr. Snapper had said,--that nothing was to be done at present. Mr. Snapper was not the less clearly of opinion that Mr. Crawley might resume his duties. To this, however, Mr. Crawley would not assent.

But even during the fortnight Mr. Crawley had not remained altogether neglected. Two days after Mr. Harding's death he had received a note from the dean in which he was advised not to resume the duties at Hogglestock for the present. "Of course you can understand that we have a sad house here at present," the dean had said. "But as soon as ever we are able to move in the matter we will arrange things for you as comfortably as we can. I will see the bishop myself." Mr. Crawley had no ambitious idea of any comfort which might accrue to him beyond that of an honourable return to his humble preferment at Hogglestock; but, nevertheless, he was in this case minded to do as the dean counselled him. He had submitted himself to the bishop, and he would wait till the bishop absolved him from his submission.

On the day after the funeral, the bishop had sent his compliments to the dean with the expression of a wish that the dean would call upon him on any early day that might be convenient with reference to the position of Mr. Crawley of Hogglestock. The note was in the bishop's own handwriting and was as mild and civil as a bishop's note could be. Of course the dean named an early day for the interview; but it was necessary before he went to the bishop that he should discuss the matter with the archdeacon. If St. Ewolds might be given to Mr. Crawley, the Hogglestock difficulties would all be brought to an end. The archdeacon, after the funeral, had returned to Plumstead, and thither the dean went to him before he saw the bishop. He did succeed,--he and Mrs. Grantly between them,--but with very great difficulty, in obtaining a conditional promise. They had both thought that when the archdeacon became fully aware that Grace was to be his daughter-in-law, he would at once have been delighted to have an opportunity of extricating from his poverty a clergyman with whom it was his fate to be so closely connected. But he fought the matter on twenty different points. He declared at first that as it was his primary duty to give to the people of St. Ewolds the best clergyman he could select for them he could not give the preferment to Mr. Crawley, because Mr. Crawley, in spite of all his zeal and piety, was a man so quaint in his manners and so eccentric in his mode of speech as not to be the best clergyman whom he could select. "What is my old friend Thorne to do with a man in his parish who won't drink a glass of wine with him?" For Ullathorne, the seat of that Mr. Wilfred Thorne who had been so guilty in the matter of the foxes, was situated in the parish of St. Ewolds. When Mrs. Grantly proposed that Mr. Thorne's consent should be asked, the archdeacon became very angry. He had never heard so unecclesiastical a proposition in his life. It was his special duty to do the best he could for Mr. Thorne, but it was specially his duty to do so without consulting Mr. Thorne about it. As the archdeacon's objection had been argued simply on the point of the glass of wine, both the dean and Mrs. Grantly thought that he was unreasonable. But they had their point to gain, and therefore they only flattered him. They were sure that Mr. Thorne would like to have a clergyman in the parish who would himself be closely connected with the archdeacon. Then Dr. Grantly alleged that he might find himself in a trap. What if he conferred the living of St. Ewolds on Mr. Crawley and after all there should be no marriage between his son and Grace? "Of course they'll be married," said Mrs. Grantly. "It's all very well for you to say that, my dear; but the whole family are so queer that there is no knowing what the girl may do. She may take up some other fad now, and refuse him point blank." "She has never taken up any fad," said Mrs. Grantly, who now mounted almost to wrath in defence of her future daughter-in-law, "and you are wrong to say that she has. She has behaved beautifully;--as nobody knows better than you do." Then the archdeacon gave way so far as to promise that St. Ewolds should be offered to Mr. Crawley as soon as Grace Crawley was in truth engaged to Harry Grantly.

After that, the dean went to the palace. There had never been any quarrelling between the bishop and the dean, either direct or indirect;--nor, indeed, had the dean ever quarrelled even with Mrs. Proudie. But he had belonged to the anti-Proudie faction. He had been brought into the diocese by the Grantly interest; and therefore, during Mrs. Proudie's life-time, he had always been accounted among the enemies. There had never been any real intimacy between the houses. Each house had been always asked to dine with the other house once a year; but it had been understood that such dinings were ecclesiastico-official, and not friendly. There had been the same outside diocesan civility between even the palace and Plumstead. But now, when the great chieftain of the palace was no more, and the strength of the palace faction was gone, peace, or perhaps something more than peace,--amity, perhaps, might be more easily arranged with the dean than with the archdeacon. In preparation for such arrangements the bishop had gone to Mr. Harding's funeral.

And now the dean went to the palace at the bishop's behest. He found his lordship alone, and was received with almost reverential courtesy. He thought that the bishop was looking wonderfully aged since he last saw him, but did not perhaps take into account the absence of clerical sleekness which was incidental to the bishop's private life in his private room, and perhaps in a certain measure to his recent great affliction. The dean had been in the habit of regarding Dr. Proudie as a man almost young for his age,--having been in the habit of seeing him at his best, clothed in authority, redolent of the throne, conspicuous as regarded his apron and outward signs of episcopality. Much of all this was now absent. The bishop, as he rose to greet the dean, shuffled with his old slippers, and his hair was not brushed so becomingly as used to be the case when Mrs. Proudie was always near him.

It was necessary that a word should be said by each as to the loss which the other had suffered. "Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "allow me to offer you my condolements in regard to the death of that very excellent clergyman and most worthy gentleman, your father-in-law."

"Thank you, my lord. He was excellent and worthy. I do not suppose that I shall live to see any man who was more so. You also have a great,--a terrible loss."

"O, Mr. Dean, yes; yes, indeed, Mr. Dean. That was a loss."

"And hardly past the prime of life!"

"Ah, yes;--just fifty-six,--and so strong! Was she not? At least everybody thought so. And yet she was gone in a minute;--gone in a minute. I haven't held up my head since, Mr. Dean."

"It was a great loss, my lord; but you must struggle to bear it."

"I do struggle. I am struggling. But it makes one feel so lonely in this great house. Ah, me! I often wish, Mr. Dean, that it had pleased Providence to have left me in some humble parsonage, where duty would have been easier than it is here. But I will not trouble you with all that. What are we to do, Mr. Dean, about this poor Mr. Crawley?"

"Mr. Crawley is a very old friend of mine, and a very dear friend."

"Is he? Ah! A very worthy man, I am sure, and one who has been much tried by undeserved adversities."

"Most severely tried, my lord."

"Sitting among the potsherds, like Job; has he not, Mr. Dean? Well; let us hope that all that is over. When this accusation about the robbery was brought against him, I found myself bound to interfere."

"He has no complaint to make on that score."

"I hope not. I have not wished to be harsh, but what could I do, Mr. Dean? They told me that the civil authorities found the evidence so strong against him that it could not be withstood."

"It was very strong."

"And we thought that he should at least be relieved, and we sent for Dr. Tempest, who is his rural dean." Then the bishop, remembering all the circumstances of that interview with Dr. Tempest,--as to which he had ever felt assured that one of the results of it was the death of his wife, whereby there was no longer any "we" left in the palace of Barchester,--sighed piteously, looking up at the dean with hopeless face.

"Nobody doubts, my lord, that you acted for the best."

"I hope we did. I think we did. And now what shall we do? He has resigned his living, both to you and to me, as I hear,--you being the patron. It will simply be necessary, I think, that he should ask to have the letters cancelled. Then, as I take it, there need be no reinstitution. You cannot think, Mr. Dean, how much I have thought about it all."

Then the dean unfolded his budget, and explained to the bishop how he hoped that the living of St. Ewolds, which was, after some ecclesiastical fashion, attached to the rectory of Plumstead, and which was now vacant by the demise of Mr. Harding, might be conferred by the archdeacon upon Mr. Crawley. It was necessary to explain also that this could not be done quite immediately, and in doing this the dean encountered some little difficulty. The archdeacon, he said, wished to be allowed another week to think about it; and therefore perhaps provision for the duties at Hogglestock might yet be made for a few Sundays. The bishop, the dean said, might easily understand that, after what had occurred, Mr. Crawley would hardly wish to go again into that pulpit, unless he did so as resuming duties which would necessarily be permanent with him. To all this the bishop assented, but he was apparently struck with much wonder at the choice made by the archdeacon. "I should have thought, Mr. Dean," he said, "that Mr. Crawley was the last man to have suited the archdeacon's choice."

"The archdeacon and I married sisters, my lord."

"Oh, ah! yes. And he puts the nomination of St. Ewolds at your disposition. I am sure I shall be delighted to institute so worthy a gentleman as Mr. Crawley." Then the dean took his leave of the bishop,--as will we also. Poor dear bishop! I am inclined to think that he was right in his regrets as to the little parsonage. Not that his failure at Barchester, and his present consciousness of lonely incompetence, were mainly due to any positive inefficiency on his own part. He might have been a sufficiently good bishop, had it not been that Mrs. Proudie was so much more than a sufficiently good bishop's wife. We will now say farewell to him, with a hope that the lopped tree may yet become green again, and to some extent fruitful, although all its beautiful head and richness of waving foliage have been taken from it.

About a week after this Henry Grantly rode over from Cosby Lodge to Hogglestock. It has been just said that though the assizes had passed by and though all question of Mr. Crawley's guilt was now set aside, no visitor had of late made his way over to Hogglestock. I fancy that Grace Crawley forgot, in the fulness of her memory as to other things, that Mr. Harding, of whose death she heard, had been her lover's grandfather,--and that therefore there might possibly be some delay. Had there been much said between the mother and the daughter about the lover, no doubt all this would have been explained; but Grace was very reticent, and there were other matters in the Hogglestock household which in those days occupied Mrs. Crawley's mind. How were they again to begin life? for, in very truth, life as it had existed with them before, had been brought to an end. But Grace remembered well the sort of compact which existed between her and her lover;--the compact which had been made in very words between herself and her lover's father. Complete in her estimation as had been the heaven opened to her by Henry Grantly's offer, she had refused it all,--lest she should bring disgrace upon him. But the disgrace was not certain; and if her father should be made free from it, then,--then,--then Henry Grantly ought to come to her and be at her feet with all the expedition possible to him. That was her reading of the compact. She had once declared, when speaking of the possible disgrace which might attach itself to her family and to her name, that her poverty did not "signify a bit." She was not ashamed of her father,--only of the accusation against her father. Therefore she had hurried home when that accusation was withdrawn, desirous that her lover should tell her of his love,--if he chose to repeat such telling,--amidst all the poor things of Hogglestock, and not among the chairs and tables and good dinners of luxurious Framley. Mrs. Robarts had given a true interpretation to Lady Lufton of the haste which Grace had displayed. But she need not have been in so great a hurry. She had been at home already above a fortnight, and as yet he had made no sign. At last she said a word to her mother. "Might I not ask to go back to Miss Prettyman's now, mamma?" "I think, dear, you had better wait till things are a little settled. Papa is to hear again from the dean very soon. You see they are all in a great sorrow at Barchester about poor Mr. Harding's death." "Grace!" said Jane, rushing into the house almost speechless, at that moment, "here he is!--on horseback." I do not know why Jane should have talked about Major Grantly as simply "he." There had been no conversation among the sisters to justify her in such a mode of speech. Grace had not a moment to put two and two together, so that she might realize the meaning of what her mother had said; but nevertheless, she felt at the moment that the man, coming as he had done now, had come with all commendable speed. How foolish had she been with her wretched impatience!

There he was certainly, tying his horse up to the railing. "Mamma, what am I to say to him?"

"Nay, dear; he is your own friend,--of your own making. You must say what you think fit."

"You are not going?"

"I think we had better, dear." Then she went, and Jane with her, and Jane opened the door for Major Grantly. Mr. Crawley himself was away, at Hoggle End, and did not return till after Major Grantly had left the parsonage. Jane, as she greeted the grand gentleman, whom she had seen and no more than seen, hardly knew what to say to him. When, after a minute's hesitation, she told him that Grace was in there,--pointing to the sitting-room door, she felt that she had been very awkward. Henry Grantly, however, did not, I think, feel her awkwardness, being conscious of some small difficulties of his own. When, however, he found that Grace was alone, the task before him at once lost half its difficulties. "Grace," he said, "am I right to come to you now?"

"I do not know," she said. "I cannot tell."

"Dearest Grace, there is no reason on earth now why you should not be my wife."

"Is there not?"

"I know of none,--if you can love me. You saw my father?"

"Yes, I saw him."

"And you heard what he said?"

"I hardly remember what he said;--but he kissed me, and I thought he was very kind."

What little attempt Henry Grantly then made, thinking that he could not do better than follow closely the example of so excellent a father, need not be explained with minuteness. But I think that his first effort was not successful. Grace was embarrassed and retreated, and it was not till she had been compelled to give a direct answer to a direct question that she submitted to allow his arm round her waist. But when she had answered that question she was almost more humble than becomes a maiden who has just been wooed and won. A maiden who has been wooed and won, generally thinks that it is she who has conquered, and chooses to be triumphant accordingly. But Grace was even mean enough to thank her lover. "I do not know why you should be so good to me," she said.

"Because I love you," said he, "better than all the world."

"But why should you be so good to me as that? Why should you love me? I am such a poor thing for a man like you to love."

"I have had the wit to see that you are not a poor thing, Grace; and it is thus that I have earned my treasure. Some girls are poor things, and some are rich treasures."

"If love can make me a treasure, I will be your treasure. And if love can make me rich, I will be rich for you." After that I think he had no difficulty in following in his father's footsteps.

After a while Mrs. Crawley came in, and there was much pleasant talking among them, while Henry Grantly sat happily with his love, as though waiting for Mr. Crawley's return. But though he was there nearly all the morning Mr. Crawley did not return. "I think he likes the brickmakers better than anybody in all the world, except ourselves," said Grace. "I don't know how he will manage to get on without his friends." Before Grace had said this, Major Grantly had told all his story, and had produced a letter from his father, addressed to Mr. Crawley, of which the reader shall have a copy, although at this time the letter had not been opened. The letter was as follows:--

Plumstead Rectory, -- May, 186--.

MY DEAR SIR,

You will no doubt have heard that Mr. Harding, the vicar of St. Ewolds, who was the father of my wife and of Mrs. Arabin, has been taken from us. The loss to us of so excellent and so dear a man has been very great. I have conferred with my friend the Dean of Barchester as to a new nomination, and I venture to request your acceptance of the preferment, if it should suit you to move from Hogglestock to St. Ewolds. It may be as well that I should state plainly my reasons for making this offer to a gentleman with whom I am not personally acquainted. Mr. Harding, on his deathbed, himself suggested it, moved thereto by what he had heard of the cruel and undeserved persecution to which you have lately been subjected; as also,--on which point he was very urgent in what he said,--by the character which you bear in the diocese for zeal and piety. I may also add, that the close connection which, as I understand, is likely to take place between your family and mine has been an additional reason for my taking this step, and the long friendship which has existed between you and my wife's brother-in-law, the Dean of Barchester, is a third.

St. Ewolds is worth £350 per annum, besides the house, which is sufficiently commodious for a moderate family. The population is about twelve hundred, of which more than a half consists of persons dwelling in an outskirt of the city,--for the parish runs almost into Barchester.

I shall be glad to have your reply with as little delay as may suit your convenience, and in the event of your accepting the offer,--which I sincerely trust you may be enabled to do,--I shall hope to have an early opportunity of seeing you, with reference to your institution to the parish.

Allow me also to say to you and to Mrs. Crawley that, if we have been correctly informed as to that other event to which I have alluded, we both hope that we may have an early opportunity of making ourselves personally acquainted with the parents of a young lady who is to be so dear to us. As I have met your daughter, I may perhaps be allowed to send her my kindest love. If, as my daughter-in-law, she comes up to the impression which she gave me at our first meeting, I, at any rate, shall be satisfied.

I have the honour to be, my dear sir, Your most faithful servant,

THEOPHILUS GRANTLY.

This letter the archdeacon had shown to his wife, by whom it had not been very warmly approved. Nothing, Mrs. Grantly had said, could be prettier than what the archdeacon had said about Grace. Mrs. Crawley, no doubt, would be satisfied with that. But Mr. Crawley was such a strange man! "He will be stranger than I take him to be if he does not accept St. Ewolds," said the archdeacon. "But in offering it," said Mrs. Grantly, "you have not said a word of your own high opinion of his merits." "I have not a very high opinion of them," said the archdeacon. "Your father had, and I have said so. And as I have the most profound respect for your father's opinion in such a matter, I have permitted that to overcome my own hesitation." This was pretty from the husband to the wife as it regarded her father, who had now gone from them; and, therefore, Mrs. Grantly accepted it without further argument. The reader may probably feel assured that the archdeacon had never, during their joint lives, acted in any church matter upon the advice given to him by Mr. Harding; and it was probably the case also that the living would have been offered to Mr. Crawley, if nothing had been said by Mr. Harding on the subject; but it did not become Mrs. Grantly even to think of all this. The archdeacon, having made his gracious speech about her father, was not again asked to alter his letter. "I suppose he will accept it," said Mrs. Grantly. "I should think that he probably may," said the archdeacon.

So Grace, knowing what was the purport of the letter, sat with it between her fingers, while her lover sat beside her, full of various plans for the future. This was his first lover's present to her;--and what a present it was! Comfort, and happiness, and a pleasant home for all her family. "St. Ewolds isn't the best house in the world," said the major, "because it is old, and what I call piecemeal; but it is very pretty, and certainly nice." "That is just the sort of parsonage that I dream about," said Jane. "And the garden is pleasant with old trees," said the major. "I always dream about old trees," said Jane, "only I'm afraid I'm too old myself to be let to climb up them now." Mrs. Crawley said very little, but sat by with her eyes full of tears. Was it possible that, at last, before the world had closed upon her, she was to enjoy something again of the comforts which she had known in her early years, and to be again surrounded by those decencies of life which of late had been almost banished from her home by poverty!

Their various plans for the future,--for the immediate future,--were very startling. Grace was to go over at once to Plumstead, whither Edith had been already transferred from Cosby Lodge. That was all very well; there was nothing very startling or impracticable in that. The Framley ladies, having none of those doubts as to what was coming which had for a while perplexed Grace herself, had taken little liberties with her wardrobe, which enabled such a visit to be made without overwhelming difficulties. But the major was equally eager,--or at any rate equally imperious,--in his requisition for a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Crawley themselves to Plumstead rectory. Mrs. Crawley did not dare to put forward the plain unadorned reasons against it, as Mr. Crawley had done when discussing the subject of a visit to the deanery. Nor could she quite venture to explain that she feared that the archdeacon and her husband would hardly mix well together in society. With whom, indeed, was it possible that her husband should mix well, after his long and hardly-tried seclusion? She could only plead that both her husband and herself were so little used to going out that she feared,--she feared,--she feared she knew not what. "We'll get over all that," said the major, almost contemptuously. "It is only the first plunge that is disagreeable." Perhaps the major did not know how very disagreeable a first plunge may be!

At two o'clock Henry Grantly got up to go. "I should very much like to have seen him, but I fear I cannot wait longer. As it is, the patience of my horse has been surprising." Then Grace walked out with him to the gate, and put her hand upon his bridle as he mounted, and thought how wonderful was the power of Fortune, that the goddess should have sent so gallant a gentleman to be her lord and her lover. "I declare I don't quite believe it even yet," she said, in the letter which she wrote to Lily Dale that night.

It was four before Mr. Crawley returned to his house, and then he was very weary. There were many sick in these days at Hoggle End, and he had gone from cottage to cottage through the day. Giles Hoggett was almost unable to work from rheumatism, but still was of opinion that doggedness might carry him on. "It's been a deal o' service to you, Muster Crawley," he said. "We hears about it all. If you hadn't a been dogged, where'd you a been now?" With Giles Hoggett and others he had remained all the day, and now he came home weary and beaten. "You'll tell him first," Grace had said, "and then I'll give him the letter." The wife was the first to tell him of the good fortune that was coming.

He flung himself into the old chair as soon as he entered, and asked for some bread and tea. "Jane has already gone for it, dear," said his wife. "We have had a visitor here, Josiah."

"A visitor,--what visitor?"

"Grace's own friend,--Henry Grantly."

"Grace, come here, that I may kiss you and bless you," he said, very solemnly. "It would seem that the world is going to be very good to you."

"Papa, you must read this letter first."

"Before I kiss my own darling?" Then she knelt at his feet. "I see," he said, taking the letter; "it is from your lover's father. Peradventure he signifies his consent, which would be surely needful before such a marriage would be seemly."

"It isn't about me, papa, at all."

"Not about you? If so, that would be most unpromising. But, in any case, you are my best darling." Then he kissed her and blessed her, and slowly opened the letter. His wife had now come close to him, and was standing over him, touching him, so that she also could read the archdeacon's letter. Grace, who was still in front of him, could see the working of his face as he read it; but even she could not tell whether he was gratified, or offended, or dismayed. When he had got as far as the first offer of the presentation, he ceased reading for a while, and looked round about the room as though lost in thought. "Let me see what further he writes to me," he then said; and after that he continued the letter slowly to the end. "Nay, my child, you were in error in saying that he wrote not about you. 'Tis in writing of you he has put some real heart into his words. He writes as though his home would be welcome to you."

"And does he not make St. Ewolds welcome to you, papa?"

"He makes me welcome to accept it,--if I may use the word after the ordinary and somewhat faulty parlance of mankind."

"And you will accept it,--of course?"

"I know not that, my dear. The acceptance of a cure of souls is a thing not to be decided on in a moment,--as is the colour of a garment or the shape of a toy. Nor would I condescend to take this thing from the archdeacon's hands, if I thought that he bestowed it simply that the father of his daughter-in-law might no longer be accounted poor."

"Does he say that, papa?"

"He gives it as a collateral reason, basing his offer first on the kindly expressed judgment of one who is now no more. Then he refers to the friendship of the dean. If he believed that the judgment of his late father-in-law in so weighty a matter were the best to be relied upon of all that were at his command, then he would have done well to trust to it. But in such case he should have bolstered up a good ground for action with no collateral supports which are weak,--and worse than weak. However, it shall have my best consideration, whereunto I hope that wisdom will be given me where only such wisdom can be had."

"Josiah," said his wife to him, when they were alone, "you will not refuse it?"

"Not willingly,--not if it may be accepted. Alas! you need not urge me, when the temptation is so strong!"

LXXXIII. MR. CRAWLEY IS CONQUERED

It was more than a week before the archdeacon received a reply from Mr. Crawley, during which time the dean had been over at Hogglestock more than once, as had also Mrs. Arabin and Lady Lufton the younger,--and there had been letters written without end, and the archdeacon had been nearly beside himself. "A man who pretends to conscientious scruples of that kind is not fit to have a parish," he had said to his wife. His wife understood what he meant, and I trust that the reader may also understand it. In the ordinary cutting of blocks a very fine razor is not an appropriate instrument. The archdeacon, moreover, loved the temporalities of the Church as temporalities. The Church was beautiful to him because one man by interest might have a thousand a year, while another man equally good, but without interest, could only have a hundred. And he liked the men who had the interest a great deal better than the men who had it not. He had been willing to admit this poor perpetual curate, who had so long been kept out in the cold, within the pleasant circle which was warm with ecclesiastical good things, and the man hesitated,--because of scruples, as the dean told him! "I always button up my pocket when I hear of scruples," the archdeacon said.

But at last Mr. Crawley condescended to accept St. Ewolds. "Reverend and dear Sir," he said in his letter.

For the personal benevolence of the offer made to me in your letter of the ---- instant, I beg to tender you my most grateful thanks; as also for your generous kindness to me, in telling me of the high praise bestowed upon me by a gentleman who is now no more,--whose character I have esteemed and whose good opinion I value. There is, methinks, something inexpressibly dear to me in the recorded praise of the dead. For the further instance of the friendship of the Dean of Barchester, I am also thankful.

Since the receipt of your letter I have doubted much as to my fitness for the work you have proposed to entrust to me,--not from any feeling that the parish of St. Ewolds may be beyond my intellectual power, but because the latter circumstances of my life have been of a nature so strange and perplexing, that they have left me somewhat in doubt as to my own aptitude for going about among men without giving offence and becoming a stumbling-block.

Nevertheless, reverend and dear sir, if after this confession on my part of a certain faulty demeanour with which I know well that I am afflicted, you are still willing to put the parish into my hands, I will accept the charge,--instigated to do so by the advice of all whom I have consulted on the subject; and in thus accepting it, I hereby pledge myself to vacate it at a month's warning, should I be called upon by you to do so at any period within the next two years. Should I be so far successful during those twenty-four months as to have satisfied both yourself and myself, I may then perhaps venture to regard the preferment as my own in perpetuity for life.

I have the honour to be, reverend and dear sir, Your most humble and faithful servant,

JOSIAH CRAWLEY.

"Psha!" said the archdeacon, who professed that he did not at all like the letter. "I wonder what he would say if I sent him a month's notice at next Michaelmas?"

"I'm sure he would go," said Mrs. Grantly.

"The more fool he," said the archdeacon.

At this time Grace was at the parsonage in a seventh heaven of happiness. The archdeacon was never rough to her, nor did he make any of his harsh remarks about her father in her presence. Before her St. Ewolds was spoken of as the home that was to belong to the Crawleys for the next twenty years. Mrs. Grantly was very loving with her, lavishing upon her pretty presents, and words that were prettier than the presents. Grace's life had hitherto been so destitute of those prettinesses and softnesses, which can hardly be had without money though money alone will not purchase them, that it seemed to her now that the heavens rained graciousness upon her. It was not that the archdeacon's watch, or her lover's chain, or Mrs. Grantly's locket, or the little toy from Italy which Mrs. Arabin brought to her from the treasures of the deanery, filled her heart with undue exultation. It was not that she revelled in her new delights of silver and gold and shining gems: but that the silver and gold and shining gems were constant indications to her that things had changed, not only for her, but for her father and mother, and brother and sister. She felt now more sure than ever that she could not have enjoyed her love had she accepted her lover while the disgrace of the accusation against her father remained. But now,--having waited till that had passed away, everything was a new happiness to her.

At last it was settled that Mr. and Mrs. Crawley were to come to Plumstead,--and they came. It would be too long to tell now how gradually had come about that changed state of things which made such a visit possible. Mr. Crawley had at first declared that such a thing was quite out of the question. If St. Ewolds was to depend upon it St. Ewolds must be given up. And I think that it would have been impossible for him to go direct from Hogglestock to Plumstead. But it fell out after this wise.

Mr. Harding's curate at St. Ewolds was nominated to Hogglestock, and the dean urged upon his friend Crawley the expediency of giving up the house as quickly as he could do so. Gradually at this time Mr. Crawley had been forced into a certain amount of intimacy with the haunts of men. He had been twice or thrice at Barchester, and had lunched with the dean. He had been at Framley for an hour or two, and had been forced into some communication with old Mr. Thorne, the squire of his new parish. The end of this had been that he had at last consented to transfer himself and wife and daughter to the deanery for a fortnight. He had preached one farewell sermon at Hogglestock,--not, as he told his audience, as their pastor, which he had ceased to be now for some two or three months,--but as their old and loving friend, to whom the use of his former pulpit had been lent, that he might express himself thus among them for the last time. His sermon was very short, and was preached without book or notes,--but he never once paused for a word or halted in the string or rhythm of his discourse. The dean was there and declared to him afterwards that he had not given him credit for such powers of utterance. "Any man can utter out of a full heart," Crawley had answered. "In this trumpery affair about myself, my heart is full! If we could only have our hearts full in other matters, our utterances thereanent would receive more attention." To all of which the dean made no reply.

On the day after this the Crawleys took their final departure from Hogglestock, all the brickmakers from Hoggle End having assembled on the occasion, with a purse containing seventeen pounds seven shillings and sixpence, which they insisted on presenting to Mr. Crawley, and as to which there was a little difficulty. And at the deanery they remained for a fortnight. How Mrs. Crawley, under the guidance of Mrs. Arabin, had there so far trenched upon the revenues of St. Ewolds as to provide for her husband and herself raiment fitting for the worldly splendour of Plumstead, need not here be told in detail. Suffice to say, the raiment was forthcoming, and Mr. Crawley found himself to be the perplexed possessor of a black dress coat, in addition to the long frock, coming nearly to his feet, which was provided for his daily wear. Touching this garment, there had been some discussion between the dean and the new vicar. The dean had desired that it should be curtailed in length. The vicar had remonstrated,--but still with something of the weakness of compliance in his eye. Then the dean had persisted. "Surely the price of the cloth wanted to perfect the comeliness of the garment cannot be much," said the vicar, almost woefully. After that, the dean relented, and the comeliness of the coat was made perfect. The new black long frock, I think Mr. Crawley liked; but the dress coat, with the suit complete, perplexed him sorely.

With his new coats, and something, also, of new manners, he and his wife went over to Plumstead, leaving Jane at the deanery with Mrs. Arabin. The dean also went to Plumstead. They arrived there not much before dinner, and as Grace was there before them the first moments were not so bad. Before Mr. Crawley had had time to feel himself lost in the drawing-room, he was summoned away to prepare himself for dinner,--for dinner, and for the coat, which at the deanery he had been allowed to leave unworn. "I would with all my heart that I might retire to rest," he said to his wife, when the ceremony had been perfected.

"Do not say so. Go down and take your place with them, and speak your mind with them,--as you so well know how. Who among them can do it so well?"

"I have been told," said Mr. Crawley, "that you shall take a cock which is lord of the farmyard,--the cock of all that walk,--and when you have daubed his feathers with mud, he shall be thrashed by every dunghill coward. I say not that I was ever the cock of the walk, but I know that they have daubed my feathers." Then he went down among the other poultry into the farmyard.

At dinner he was very silent, answering, however, with a sort of graceful stateliness any word that Mrs. Grantly addressed to him. Mr. Thorne, from Ullathorne, was there also to meet his new vicar, as was also Mr. Thorne's very old sister, Miss Monica Thorne. And Lady Anne Grantly was there,--she having come with the expressed intention that the wives of the two brothers should know each other,--but with a warmer desire, I think, of seeing Mr. Crawley, of whom the clerical world had been talking much since some notice of the accusation against him had become general. There were, therefore, ten or twelve at the dinner-table, and Mr. Crawley had not made one at such a board certainly since his marriage. All went fairly smooth with him till the ladies left the room; for though Lady Anne, who sat at his left hand, had perplexed him somewhat with clerical questions, he had found that he was not called upon for much more than monosyllabic responses. But in his heart he feared the archdeacon, and he felt that when the ladies were gone the archdeacon would not leave him alone in his silence.

As soon as the door was closed, the first subject mooted was that of the Plumstead fox, which had been so basely murdered on Mr. Thorne's ground. Mr. Thorne had confessed the iniquity, had dismissed the murderous keeper, and all was serene. But the greater on that account was the feasibility of discussing the question, and the archdeacon had a good deal to say about it. Then Mr. Thorne turned to the new vicar, and asked him whether foxes abounded in Hogglestock. Had he been asked as to the rats or the moles, he would have known more about it.

"Indeed, sir, I know not whether or no there be any foxes in the parish of Hogglestock. I do not remember me that I ever saw one. It is an animal whose habits I have not watched."

"There is an earth at Hoggle Bushes," said the major; "and I never knew it without a litter."

"I think I know the domestic whereabouts of every fox in Plumstead," said the archdeacon, with an ill-natured intention of astonishing Mr. Crawley.

"Of foxes with two legs our friend is speaking, without doubt," said the vicar of St. Ewolds, with an attempt at grim pleasantry.

"Of them we have none at Plumstead. No,--I was speaking of the dear old fellow with the brush. Pass the bottle, Mr. Crawley. Won't you fill your glass?" Mr. Crawley passed the bottle, but would not fill his glass. Then the dean, looking up slily, saw the vexation written in the archdeacon's face. The parson whom the archdeacon feared most of all parsons was the parson who wouldn't fill his glass.

Then the subject was changed. "I'm told that the bishop has at last made his reappearance on his throne," said the archdeacon.

"He was in the cathedral last Sunday," said the dean.

"Does he ever mean to preach again?"

"He never did preach very often," said the dean.

"A great deal too often, from all that people say," said the archdeacon. "I never heard him myself, and never shall, I dare say. You have heard him, Mr. Crawley?"

"I have never had that good fortune, Mr. Archdeacon. But living as I shall now do, so near to the city, I may perhaps be enabled to attend the cathedral service on some holyday of the Church, which may not require prayers in my own rural parish. I think that the clergy of the diocese should be acquainted with the opinions, and with the voice, and with the very manner and words of their bishop. As things are now done, this is not possible. I could wish that there were occasions on which a bishop might assemble his clergy, and preach to them sermons adapted to their use."

"What do you call a bishop's charge, then?"

"It is usually in the printed form that I have received it," said Mr. Crawley.

"I think we have quite enough of that kind of thing," said the archdeacon.

"He is a man whose conversation is not pleasing to me," Mr. Crawley said to his wife that night.

"Do not judge of him too quickly, Josiah," his wife said. "There is so much of good in him! He is kind, and generous, and I think affectionate."

"But he is of the earth, earthy. When you and the other ladies had retired, the conversation at first fell on the habits and value of--foxes. I have been informed that in these parts the fox is greatly prized, as without a fox to run before the dogs, that scampering over the country which is called hunting, and which delights by the quickness and perhaps by the peril of the exercise, is not relished by the riders. Of the wisdom or taste herein displayed by the hunters of the day I say nothing. But it seemed to me that in talking of foxes Dr. Grantly was master of his subject. Thence the topic glided to the duties of a bishop and to questions of preaching, as to which Dr. Grantly was not slow in offering his opinion. But I thought that I would rather have heard him talk about the foxes for a week together." She said nothing more to him, knowing well how useless it was to attempt to turn him by any argument. To her thinking the kindness of the archdeacon to them personally demanded some indulgence in the expression, and even in the formation, of an opinion, respecting his clerical peculiarities.

On the next day, however, Mr. Crawley, having been summoned by the archdeacon into the library for a little private conversation, found that he got on better with him. How the archdeacon conquered him may perhaps be best described by a further narration of what Mr. Crawley said to his wife. "I told him that in regard to money matters, as he called them, I had nothing to say. I only trusted that his son was aware that my daughter had no money, and never would have any. 'My dear Crawley,' the archdeacon said,--for of late there seems to have grown up in the world a habit of greater familiarity than that which I think did prevail when last I moved much among men;--'my dear Crawley, I have enough for both.' 'I would we stood on more equal grounds,' I said. Then as he answered me, he rose from his chair. 'We stand,' said he, 'on the only perfect level on which such men can meet each other. We are both gentlemen.' 'Sir,' I said, rising also, 'from the bottom of my heart I agree with you. I could not have spoken such words; but coming from you who are rich to me who am poor, they are honourable to the one and comfortable to the other.'"

"And after that?"

"He took down from the shelves a volume of sermons which his father published many years ago, and presented it to me. I have it now under my arm. It hath the old bishop's manuscript notes, which I will study carefully." And thus the archdeacon had hit his bird on both wings.

LXXXIV. CONCLUSION

It now only remains for me to gather together a few loose strings, and tie them together in a knot, so that my work may not become untwisted. Early in July, Henry Grantly and Grace Crawley were married in the parish church of Plumstead,--a great impropriety, as to which neither Archdeacon Grantly nor Mr. Crawley could be got to assent for a long time, but which was at last carried, not simply by a union of Mrs. Grantly and Mrs. Crawley, nor even by the assistance of Mrs. Arabin, but by the strong intervention of old Lady Lufton herself. "Of course Miss Crawley ought to be married from St. Ewolds vicarage; but when the furniture has only half been got in, how is it possible?" When Lady Lufton thus spoke, the archdeacon gave way, and Mr. Crawley hadn't a leg to stand upon. Henry Grantly had not an opinion upon the matter. He told his father that he expected that they would marry him among them, and that that would be enough for him. As for Grace, nobody even thought of asking her; and I doubt whether she would have heard anything about the contest, had not some tidings of it reached her from her lover. Married they were at Plumstead,--and the breakfast was given with all that luxuriance of plenty which was so dear to the archdeacon's mind. Mr. Crawley was the officiating priest. With his hands dropping before him, folded humbly, he told the archdeacon,--when that Plumstead question had been finally settled in opposition to his wishes,--that he would fain himself perform the ceremony by which his dearest daughter would be bound to her marriage duties. "And who else should?" said the archdeacon. Mr. Crawley muttered that he had not known how far his reverend brother might have been willing to waive his rights. But the archdeacon, who was in high good humour,--having just bestowed a little pony carriage on his new daughter-in-law,--only laughed at him; and, if the rumour which was handed about the families be true, the archdeacon, before the interview was over, had poked Mr. Crawley in the ribs. Mr. Crawley married them; but the archdeacon assisted,--and the dean gave away the bride. The Rev. Charles Grantly was there also; and as there was, as a matter of course, a cloud of curates floating in the distance, Henry Grantly was perhaps to be excused for declaring to his wife, when the pair had escaped, that surely no couple had ever been so tightly buckled since marriage had first become a Church ceremony.

Soon after that, Mr. and Mrs. Crawley became quiet at St. Ewolds, and, as I think, contented. Her happiness began very quickly. Though she had been greatly broken by her troubles, the first sight she had of her husband in his new long frock-coat went far to restore her, and while he was declaring himself to be a cock so daubed with mud as to be incapable of crowing, she was congratulating herself on seeing her husband once more clothed as became his position. And they were lucky, too, as regarded the squire's house; for Mr. Thorne was old, and quiet, and old-fashioned; and Miss Thorne was older, and though she was not exactly quiet, she was very old-fashioned indeed. So that there grew to be a pleasant friendship between Miss Thorne and Mrs. Crawley.

Johnny Eames, when last I heard of him, was still a bachelor, and, as I think, likely to remain so. At last he had utterly thrown over Sir Raffle Buffle, declaring to his friends that the special duties of private secretaryship were not exactly to his taste. "You get so sick at the thirteenth private note," he said, "that you find yourself unable to carry on the humbug any farther." But he did not leave his office. "I'm the head of a room, you know," he told Lady Julia De Guest; "and there's nothing to trouble me,--and a fellow, you know, ought to have something to do." Lady Julia told him, with a great deal of energy, that she would never forgive him if he gave up his office. After that eventful night when he escaped ignominiously from the house of Lady Demolines under the protection of the policeman's lantern, he did hear more than once from Porchester Terrace, and from allies employed by the enemy who was there resident. "My cousin, the serjeant," proved to be a myth. Johnny found out all about that Serjeant Runter, who was distantly connected, indeed, with the late husband of Lady Demolines, but had always persistently declined to have any intercourse whatever with her ladyship. For the serjeant was a rising man, and Lady Demolines was not exactly progressing in the world. Johnny heard nothing from the serjeant; but from Madalina he got letter after letter. In the first she asked him not to think too much of the little joke that had occurred. In her second she described the vehemence of her love. In her third the bitterness of her wrath. Her fourth she simply invited him to come and dine in Porchester Terrace. Her fifth was the outpouring of injured innocence. And then came letters from an attorney. Johnny answered not a word to any of them, and gradually the letters were discontinued. Within six months of the receipt of the last, he was delighted by reading among the marriages in the newspapers a notice that Peter Bangles, Esq., of the firm of Burton and Bangles, wine merchants, of Hook Court, had been united to Madalina, daughter of the late Sir Confucius Demolines, at the church of Peter the Martyr. "Most appropriate," said Johnny, as he read the notice to Conway Dalrymple, who was then back from his wedding tour; "for most assuredly there will be now another Peter the Martyr."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Conway, who had heard something of Mr. Peter Bangles. "There are men who have strong wills of their own, and strong hands of their own."

"Poor Madalina!" said Johnny. "If he does beat her, I hope he will do it tenderly. It may be that a little of it will suit her fevered temperament."

Before the summer was over Conway Dalrymple had been married to Clara Van Siever, and by a singular arrangement of circumstances had married her with the full approval of old Mrs. Van. Mr. Musselboro,--whose name I hope has not been altogether forgotten, though the part played by him has been subordinate,--had opposed Dalrymple in the efforts made by the artist to get something out of Broughton's estate for the benefit of the widow. From circumstances of which Dalrymple learned the particulars with the aid of an attorney, it seemed to him that certain facts were wilfully kept in the dark by Musselboro, and he went with his complaint to Mrs. Van Siever, declaring that he would bring the whole affair into court, unless all the workings of the firm were made clear to him. Mrs. Van was very insolent to him,--and even turned him out of the house. But, nevertheless, she did not allow Mr. Musselboro to escape. Whoever was to be left in the dark she did not wish to be there herself;--and it began to dawn upon her that her dear Musselboro was deceiving her. Then she sent for Dalrymple, and without a word of apology for her former conduct, put him upon the right track. As he was pushing his inquiries, and working heaven and earth for the unfortunate widow,--as to whom he swore daily that when this matter was settled he would never see her again, so terrible was she to him with her mock affection and pretended hysterics, and false moralities,--he was told one day that she had gone off with Mr. Musselboro! Mr. Musselboro, finding that this was the surest plan of obtaining for himself the little business in Hook Court, married the widow of his late partner, and is at this moment probably carrying on a law-suit with Mrs. Van. For the law-suit Conway Dalrymple cared nothing. When the quarrel had become hot between Mrs. Van and her late myrmidon, Clara fell into Conway's hands without opposition; and, let the law-suit go as it may, there will be enough left of Mrs. Van's money to make the house of Mr. and Mrs. Conway Dalrymple very comfortable. The picture of Jael and Sisera was stitched up without any difficulty, and I daresay most of my readers will remember it hanging on the walls of the exhibition.

Before I take my leave of the diocese of Barchester for ever, which I purpose to do in the succeeding paragraph, I desire to be allowed to say one word of apology for myself, in answer to those who have accused me,--always without bitterness, and generally with tenderness,--of having forgotten, in writing of clergymen, the first and most prominent characteristic of the ordinary English clergyman's life. I have described many clergymen, they say, but have spoken of them all as though their professional duties, their high calling, their daily workings for the good of those around them, were matters of no moment, either to me, or, in my opinion, to themselves. I would plead, in answer to this, that my object has been to paint the social and not the professional lives of clergymen; and that I have been led to do so, firstly, by a feeling that as no men affect more strongly, by their own character, the society of those around than do country clergymen, so, therefore, their social habits have been worth the labour necessary for painting them; and secondly, by a feeling that though I, as a novelist, may feel myself entitled to write of clergymen out of their pulpits, as I may also write of lawyers and doctors, I have no such liberty to write of them in their pulpits. When I have done so, if I have done so, I have so far transgressed. There are those who have told me that I have made all my clergymen bad, and none good. I must venture to hint to such judges that they have taught their eyes to love a colouring higher than nature justifies. We are, most of us, apt to love Raphael's madonnas better than Rembrandt's matrons. But, though we do so, we know that Rembrandt's matrons existed; but we have a strong belief that no such woman as Raphael painted ever did exist. In that he painted, as he may be surmised to have done, for pious purposes,--at least for Church purposes,--Raphael was justified; but had he painted so for family portraiture he would have been false. Had I written an epic about clergymen, I would have taken St. Paul for my model; but describing, as I have endeavoured to do, such clergymen as I see around me, I could not venture to be transcendental. For myself I can only say that I shall always be happy to sit, when allowed to do so, at the table of Archdeacon Grantly, to walk through the High Street of Barchester arm in arm with Mr. Robarts of Framley, and to stand alone and shed a tear beneath the modest black stone in the north transept of the cathedral on which is inscribed the name of Septimus Harding.

And now, if the reader will allow me to seize him affectionately by the arm, we will together take our last farewell of Barset and of the towers of Barchester. I may not venture to say to him that, in this country, he and I together have wandered often through the country lanes, and have ridden together over the too-well wooded fields, or have stood together in the cathedral nave listening to the peals of the organ, or have together sat at good men's tables, or have confronted together the angry pride of men who were not good. I may not boast that any beside myself have so realized the place, and the people, and the facts, as to make such reminiscences possible as those which I should attempt to evoke by an appeal to perfect fellowship. But to me Barset has been a real county, and its city a real city, and the spires and towers have been before my eyes, and the voices of the people are known to my ears, and the pavement of the city ways are familiar to my footsteps. To them all I now say farewell. That I have been induced to wander among them too long by my love of old friendships, and by the sweetness of old faces, is a fault for which I may perhaps be more readily forgiven, when I repeat, with some solemnity of assurance, the promise made in my title, that this shall be the last chronicle of Barset.