Barchester Towers

The bishop, however, thought that she looked very like an angel and, accepting the proffered seat, sat down beside her. He uttered some platitude as to his deep obligation for the trouble she had taken, and wondered more and more who she was.

“Of course you know my sad story?” she continued.

The bishop didn’t know a word of it. He knew, however, or thought he knew, that she couldn’t walk into a room like other people, and so made the most of that. He put on a look of ineffable distress and said that he was aware how God had afflicted her.

The signora just touched the corner of her eyes with the most lovely of pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes, she said—she had been sorely tried—tried, she thought, beyond the common endurance of humanity; but while her child was left to her, everything was left. “Oh! my lord,” she exclaimed, “you must see that infant—the last bud of a wondrous tree: you must let a mother hope that you will lay your holy hands on her innocent head and consecrate her for female virtues. May I hope it?” said she, looking into the bishop’s eye and touching the bishop’s arm with her hand.

The bishop was but a man and said she might. After all, what was it but a request that he would confirm her daughter?—a request, indeed, very unnecessary to make, as he should do so as a matter of course if the young lady came forward in the usual way.

“The blood of Tiberius,” said the signora in all but a whisper; “the blood of Tiberius flows in her veins. She is the last of the Neros!”

The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to have the last of the Neros thus brought before him for a blessing was very staggering. Still he liked the lady: she had a proper way of thinking and talked with more propriety than her brother. But who were they? It was now quite clear that that blue madman with the silky beard was not a Prince Vicinironi. The lady was married and was of course one of the Vicinironi’s by right of the husband. So the bishop went on learning.

“When will you see her? said the signora with a start.

“See whom?” said the bishop.

“My child,” said the mother.

“What is the young lady’s age?” asked the bishop.

“She is just seven,” said the signora.

“Oh,” said the bishop, shaking his head; “she is much too young—very much too young.”

“But in sunny Italy, you know, we do not count by years,” and the signora gave the bishop one of her very sweetest smiles.

“But indeed, she is a great deal too young,” persisted the bishop; “we never confirm before—”

“But you might speak to her; you might let her hear from your consecrated lips that she is not a castaway because she is a Roman; that she may be a Nero and yet a Christian; that she may owe her black locks and dark cheeks to the blood of the pagan Caesars, and yet herself be a child of grace; you will tell her this, won’t you, my friend?”

The friend said he would, and asked if the child could say her catechism.

“No,” said the signora, “I would not allow her to learn lessons such as those in a land ridden over by priests and polluted by the idolatry of Rome. It is here, here in Barchester, that she must first be taught to lisp those holy words. Oh, that you could be her instructor!”

Now, Dr. Proudie certainly liked the lady, but, seeing that he was a bishop, it was not probable that he was going to instruct a little girl in the first rudiments of her catechism; so he said he’d send a teacher.

“But you’ll see her yourself, my lord?”

The bishop said he would, but where should he call.

“At Papa’s house,” said the Signora with an air of some little surprise at the question.

The bishop actually wanted the courage to ask her who was her papa, so he was forced at last to leave her without fathoming the mystery. Mrs. Proudie, in her second best, had now returned to the rooms, and her husband thought it as well that he should not remain in too close conversation with the lady whom his wife appeared to hold in such slight esteem. Presently he came across his youngest daughter.

“Netta,” said he, “do you know who is the father of that Signora Vicinironi?”

“It isn’t Vicinironi, Papa,” said Netta; “but Vesey Neroni, and she’s Doctor Stanhope’s daughter. But I must go and do the civil to Griselda Grantly; I declare nobody has spoken a word to the poor girl this evening.”

Dr. Stanhope! Dr. Vesey Stanhope! Dr. Vesey Stanhope’s daughter, of whose marriage with a dissolute Italian scamp he now remembered to have heard something! And that impertinent blue cub who had examined him as to his episcopal bearings was old Stanhope’s son, and the lady who had entreated him to come and teach her child the catechism was old Stanhope’s daughter! The daughter of one of his own prebendaries! As these things flashed across his mind, he was nearly as angry as his wife had been. Nevertheless, he could not but own that the mother of the last of the Neros was an agreeable woman.

Dr. Proudie tripped out into the adjoining room, in which were congregated a crowd of Grantlyite clergymen, among whom the archdeacon was standing pre-eminent, while the old dean was sitting nearly buried in a huge arm chair by the fire-place. The bishop was very anxious to be gracious, and, if possible, to diminish the bitterness which his chaplain had occasioned. Let Mr. Slope do the fortiter in re, he himself would pour in the suaviter in modo.

“Pray don’t stir, Mr. Dean, pray don’t stir,” he said as the old man essayed to get up; “I take it as a great kindness, your coming to such an omnium gatherum as this. But we have hardly got settled yet, and Mrs. Proudie has not been able to see her friends as she would wish to do. Well, Mr. Archdeacon, after all, we have not been so hard upon you at Oxford.”

“No,” said the archdeacon, “you’ve only drawn our teeth and cut out our tongues; you’ve allowed us still to breathe and swallow.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the bishop; “it’s not quite so easy to cut out the tongue of an Oxford magnate—and as for teeth—ha, ha, ha! Why, in the way we’ve left the matter, it’s very odd if the heads of colleges don’t have their own way quite as fully as when the hebdomadal board was in all its glory; what do you say, Mr. Dean?”

“An old man, my lord, never likes changes,” said the dean.

“You must have been sad bunglers if it is so,” said the archdeacon; “and indeed, to tell the truth, I think you have bungled it. At any rate, you must own this; you have not done the half what you boasted you would do.”

“Now, as regards your system of professors—” began the chancellor slowly. He was never destined to get beyond such beginning.

“Talking of professors,” said a soft clear voice, close behind the chancellor’s elbow; “how much you Englishmen might learn from Germany; only you are all too proud.”

The bishop, looking round, perceived that that abominable young Stanhope had pursued him. The dean stared at him as though he were some unearthly apparition; so also did two or three prebendaries and minor canons. The archdeacon laughed.

“The German professors are men of learning,” said Mr. Harding, “but—”

“German professors!” groaned out the chancellor, as though his nervous system had received a shock which nothing but a week of Oxford air could cure.

“Yes,” continued Ethelbert, not at all understanding why a German professor should be contemptible in the eyes of an Oxford don. “Not but what the name is best earned at Oxford. In Germany the professors do teach; at Oxford, I believe, they only profess to do so, and sometimes not even that. You’ll have those universities of yours about your ears soon, if you don’t consent to take a lesson from Germany.”

There was no answering this. Dignified clergymen of sixty years of age could not condescend to discuss such a matter with a young man with such clothes and such a beard.

“Have you got good water out at Plumstead, Mr. Archdeacon?” said the bishop by way of changing the conversation.

“Pretty good,” said Dr. Grantly.

“But by no means so good as his wine, my lord,” said a witty minor canon.

“Nor so generally used,” said another; “that is, for inward application.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the bishop, “a good cellar of wine is a very comfortable thing in a house.”

“Your German professors, Sir, prefer beer, I believe,” said the sarcastic little meagre prebendary.

“They don’t think much of either,” said Ethelbert, “and that perhaps accounts for their superiority. Now the Jewish professor—”

The insult was becoming too deep for the spirit of Oxford to endure, so the archdeacon walked off one way and the chancellor another, followed by their disciples, and the bishop and the young reformer were left together on the hearth-rug.

“I was a Jew once myself,” began Bertie.

The bishop was determined not to stand another examination, or be led on any terms into Palestine, so he again remembered that he had to do something very particular, and left young Stanhope with the dean. The dean did not get the worst of it for Ethelbert gave him a true account of his remarkable doings in the Holy Land.

“Oh, Mr. Harding,” said the bishop, overtaking the ci-devant warden; “I wanted to say one word about the hospital. You know, of course, that it is to be filled up.”

Mr. Harding’s heart beat a little, and he said that he had heard so.

“Of course,” continued the bishop; “there can be only one man whom I could wish to see in that situation. I don’t know what your own views may be, Mr. Harding—”

“They are very simply told, my lord,” said the other; “to take the place if it be offered me, and to put up with the want of it should another man get it.”

The bishop professed himself delighted to hear it; Mr. Harding might be quite sure that no other man would get it. There were some few circumstances which would in a slight degree change the nature of the duties. Mr. Harding was probably aware of this, and would, perhaps, not object to discuss the matter with Mr. Slope. It was a subject to which Mr. Slope had given a good deal of attention.

Mr. Harding felt, he knew not why, oppressed and annoyed. What could Mr. Slope do to him? He knew that there were to be changes. The nature of them must be communicated to the warden through somebody, and through whom so naturally as the bishop’s chaplain? ‘Twas thus he tried to argue himself back to an easy mind, but in vain.

Mr. Slope in the meantime had taken the seat which the bishop had vacated on the signora’s sofa, and remained with that lady till it was time to marshal the folk to supper. Not with contented eyes had Mrs. Proudie seen this. Had not this woman laughed at her distress, and had not Mr. Slope heard it? Was she not an intriguing Italian woman, half wife and half not, full of affectation, airs, and impudence? Was she not horribly bedizened with velvet and pearls, with velvet and pearls, too, which had not been torn off her back? Above all, did she not pretend to be more beautiful than her neighbours? To say that Mrs. Proudie was jealous would give a wrong idea of her feelings. She had not the slightest desire that Mr. Slope should be in love with herself. But she desired the incense of Mr. Slope’s spiritual and temporal services, and did not choose that they should be turned out of their course to such an object as Signora Neroni. She considered also that Mr. Slope ought in duty to hate the signora, and it appeared from his manner that he was very far from hating her.

“Come, Mr. Slope,” she said, sweeping by and looking all that she felt, “can’t you make yourself useful? Do pray take Mrs. Grantly down to supper.”

Mrs. Grantly heard and escaped. The words were hardly out of Mrs. Proudie’s mouth before the intended victim had stuck her hand through the arm of one of her husband’s curates and saved herself. What would the archdeacon have said had he seen her walking downstairs with Mr. Slope?

Mr. Slope heard also, but was by no means so obedient as was expected. Indeed, the period of Mr. Slope’s obedience to Mrs. Proudie was drawing to a close. He did not wish yet to break with her, nor to break with her at all, if it could be avoided. But he intended to be master in that palace, and as she had made the same resolution it was not improbable that they might come to blows.

Before leaving the signora he arranged a little table before her and begged to know what he should bring her. She was quite indifferent, she said—nothing—anything. It was now she felt the misery of her position, now that she must be left alone. Well, a little chicken, some ham, and a glass of champagne.

Mr. Slope had to explain, not without blushing for his patron, that there was no champagne.

Sherry would do just as well. And then Mr. Slope descended with the learned Miss Trefoil on his arm. Could she tell him, he asked, whether the ferns of Barsetshire were equal to those of Cumberland? His strongest worldly passion was for ferns—and before she could answer him he left her wedged between the door and the sideboard. It was fifty minutes before she escaped, and even then unfed.

“You are not leaving us, Mr. Slope,” said the watchful lady of the house, seeing her slave escaping towards the door, with stores of provisions held high above the heads of the guests.

Mr. Slope explained that the Signora Neroni was in want of her supper.

“Pray, Mr. Slope, let her brother take it to her,” said Mrs. Proudie, quite out loud. “It is out of the question that you should be so employed. Pray, Mr. Slope, oblige me; I am sure Mr. Stanhope will wait upon his sister.”

Ethelbert was most agreeably occupied in the furthest corner of the room, making himself both useful and agreeable to Mrs. Proudie’s youngest daughter.

“I couldn’t get out, madam, if Madeline were starving for her supper,” said he; “I’m physically fixed, unless I could fly.”

The lady’s anger was increased by seeing that her daughter also had gone over to the enemy, and when she saw, that in spite of her remonstrances, in the teeth of her positive orders, Mr. Slope went off to the drawing-room, the cup of her indignation ran over, and she could not restrain herself. “Such manners I never saw,” she said, muttering. “I cannot and will not permit it;” and then, after fussing and fuming for a few minutes, she pushed her way through the crowd and followed Mr. Slope.

When she reached the room above, she found it absolutely deserted, except by the guilty pair. The signora was sitting very comfortably up to her supper, and Mr. Slope was leaning over her and administering to her wants. They had been discussing the merits of Sabbath-day schools, and the lady had suggested that as she could not possibly go to the children, she might be indulged in the wish of her heart by having the children brought to her.

“And when shall it be, Mr. Slope?” said she.

Mr. Slope was saved the necessity of committing himself to a promise by the entry of Mrs. Proudie. She swept close up to the sofa so as to confront the guilty pair, stared full at them for a moment, and then said, as she passed on to the next room, “Mr. Slope, his lordship is especially desirous of your attendance below; you will greatly oblige me if you will join him.” And so she stalked on.

Mr. Slope muttered something in reply, and prepared to go downstairs. As for the bishop’s wanting him, he knew his lady patroness well enough to take that assertion at what it was worth; but he did not wish to make himself the hero of a scene, or to become conspicuous for more gallantry than the occasion required.

“Is she always like this?” said the signora.

“Yes—always—madam,” said Mrs. Proudie, returning; “always the same—always equally adverse to impropriety of conduct of every description;” and she stalked back through the room again, following Mr. Slope out of the door.

The signora couldn’t follow her, or she certainly would have done so. But she laughed loud, and sent the sound of it ringing through the lobby and down the stairs after Mrs. Proudie’s feet. Had she been as active as Grimaldi, she could probably have taken no better revenge.

“Mr. Slope,” said Mrs. Proudie, catching the delinquent at the door, “I am surprised you should leave my company to attend on such a painted Jezebel as that.”

“But she’s lame, Mrs. Proudie, and cannot move. Somebody must have waited upon her.”

“Lame,” said Mrs. Proudie; “I’d lame her if she belonged to me. What business had she here at all?—such impertinence—such affectation.”

In the hall and adjacent rooms all manner of cloaking and shawling was going on, and the Barchester folk were getting themselves gone. Mrs. Proudie did her best to smirk at each and every one as they made their adieux, but she was hardly successful. Her temper had been tried fearfully. By slow degrees the guests went.

“Send back the carriage quick,” said Ethelbert, as Dr. and Mrs. Stanhope took their departure.

The younger Stanhopes were left to the very last, and an uncomfortable party they made with the bishop’s family. They all went into the dining-room, and then the bishop observing that “the lady” was alone in the drawing-room, they followed him up. Mrs. Proudie kept Mr. Slope and her daughters in close conversation, resolving that he should not be indulged, nor they polluted. The bishop, in mortal dread of Bertie and the Jews, tried to converse with Charlotte Stanhope about the climate of Italy. Bertie and the signora had no resource but in each other.

“Did you get your supper at last, Madeline?” said the impudent or else mischievous young man.

“Oh, yes,” said Madeline; “Mr. Slope was so very kind as to bring it me. I fear, however, he put himself to more inconvenience than I wished.”

Mrs. Proudie looked at her but said nothing. The meaning of her look might have been thus translated; “If ever you find yourself within these walls again, I’ll give you leave to be as impudent and affected and as mischievous as you please.”

At last the carriage returned with the three Italian servants, and La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni was carried out, as she had been carried in.

The lady of the palace retired to her chamber by no means contented with the result of her first grand party at Barchester.

CHAPTER XII

Slope versus Harding

Two or three days after the party, Mr. Harding received a note begging him to call on Mr. Slope, at the palace, at an early hour on the following morning. There was nothing uncivil in the communication, and yet the tone of it was thoroughly displeasing. It was as follows:

MY DEAR MR. HARDING,

Will you favour me by calling on me at the palace to-morrow morning at 9:30 A.M. The bishop wishes me to speak to you touching the hospital. I hope you will excuse my naming so early an hour. I do so as my time is greatly occupied. If, however, it is positively inconvenient to you, I will change it to 10. You will, perhaps, be kind enough to let me have a note in reply.

Believe me to be, My dear Mr. Harding, Your assured friend, OBH. SLOPE

The Palace, Monday morning, 20th August, 185—

Mr. Harding neither could nor would believe anything of the sort, and he thought, moreover, that Mr. Slope was rather impertinent to call himself by such a name. His assured friend, indeed! How many assured friends generally fall to the lot of a man in this world? And by what process are they made? And how much of such process had taken place as yet between Mr. Harding and Mr. Slope? Mr. Harding could not help asking himself these questions as he read and re-read the note before him. He answered it, however, as follows:

DEAR SIR,

I will call at the palace to-morrow at 9:30 A.M. as you desire.

Truly yours,

S. HARDING

High Street, Barchester, Monday

And on the following morning, punctually at half-past nine, he knocked at the palace door and asked for Mr. Slope.

The bishop had one small room allotted to him on the ground-floor, and Mr. Slope had another. Into this latter Mr. Harding was shown and asked to sit down. Mr. Slope was not yet there. The ex-warden stood up at the window looking into the garden, and could not help thinking how very short a time had passed since the whole of that house had been open to him, as though he had been a child of the family, born and bred in it. He remembered how the old servants used to smile as they opened the door to him; how the familiar butler would say, when he had been absent a few hours longer than usual, “A sight of you, Mr. Harding, is good for sore eyes;” how the fussy housekeeper would swear that he couldn’t have dined, or couldn’t have breakfasted, or couldn’t have lunched. And then, above all, he remembered the pleasant gleam of inward satisfaction which always spread itself over the old bishop’s face whenever his friend entered his room.

A tear came into each eye as he reflected that all this was gone. What use would the hospital be to him now? He was alone in the world, and getting old; he would soon, very soon have to go and leave it all, as his dear old friend had gone; go, and leave the hospital, and his accustomed place in the cathedral, and his haunts and pleasures, to younger and perhaps wiser men. That chanting of his! Perhaps, in truth, the time for it was gone by. He felt as though the world were sinking from his feet; as though this, this was the time for him to turn with confidence to those hopes which he had preached with confidence to others. “What,” said he to himself, “can a man’s religion be worth if it does not support him against the natural melancholy of declining years?” And as he looked out through his dimmed eyes into the bright parterres of the bishop’s garden, he felt that he had the support which he wanted.

Nevertheless, he did not like to be thus kept waiting. If Mr. Slope did not really wish to see him at half-past nine o’clock, why force him to come away from his lodgings with his breakfast in his throat? To tell the truth, it was policy on the part of Mr. Slope. Mr. Slope had made up his mind that Mr. Harding should either accept the hospital with abject submission, or else refuse it altogether, and had calculated that he would probably be more quick to do the latter, if he could be got to enter upon the subject in an ill-humour. Perhaps Mr. Slope was not altogether wrong in his calculation.

It was nearly ten when Mr. Slope hurried into the room and, muttering something about the bishop and diocesan duties, shook Mr. Harding’s hand ruthlessly and begged him to be seated.

Now the air of superiority which this man assumed did go against the grain with Mr. Harding, and yet he did not know how to resent it. The whole tendency of his mind and disposition was opposed to any contra-assumption of grandeur on his own part, and he hadn’t the worldly spirit or quickness necessary to put down insolent pretensions by downright and open rebuke, as the archdeacon would have done. There was nothing for Mr. Harding but to submit, and he accordingly did so.

“About the hospital, Mr. Harding?” began Mr. Slope, speaking of it as the head of a college at Cambridge might speak of some sizarship which had to be disposed of.

Mr. Harding crossed one leg over another, and then one hand over the other on the top of them, and looked Mr. Slope in the face; but he said nothing.

“It’s to be filled up again,” said Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding said that he had understood so.

“Of course, you know, the income will be very much reduced,” continued Mr. Slope. “The bishop wished to be liberal, and he therefore told the government that he thought it ought to be put at not less than Ł450. I think on the whole the bishop was right, for though the services required will not be of a very onerous nature, they will be more so than they were before. And it is, perhaps, well that the clergy immediately attached to the cathedral town should be made as comfortable as the extent of the ecclesiastical means at our disposal will allow. Those are the bishop’s ideas, and I must say mine also.”

Mr. Harding sat rubbing one hand on the other, but said not a word.

“So much for the income, Mr. Harding. The house will, of course, remain to the warden, as before. It should, however, I think, be stipulated that he should paint inside every seven years, and outside every three years, and be subject to dilapidations, in the event of vacating, either by death or otherwise. But this is a matter on which the bishop must yet be consulted.”

Mr. Harding still rubbed his hands and still sat silent, gazing up into Mr. Slope’s unprepossessing face.

“Then, as to the duties,” continued he, “I believe, if I am rightly informed, there can hardly be said to have been any duties hitherto,” and he gave a sort of half-laugh, as though to pass off the accusation in the guise of a pleasantry.

Mr. Harding thought of the happy, easy years he had passed in his old home; of the worn-out, aged men whom he had succoured; of his good intentions; and of his work, which had certainly been of the lightest. He thought of these things, doubting for a moment whether he did or did not deserve the sarcasm. He gave his enemy the benefit of the doubt, and did not rebuke him. He merely observed, very tranquilly, and perhaps with too much humility, that the duties of the situation, such as they were, had, he believed, been done to the satisfaction of the late bishop.

Mr. Slope again smiled, and this time the smile was intended to operate against the memory of the late bishop rather than against the energy of the ex-warden; so it was understood by Mr. Harding. The colour rose to his cheeks, and he began to feel very angry.

“You must be aware, Mr. Harding, that things are a good deal changed in Barchester,” said Mr. Slope.

Mr. Harding said that he was aware of it. “And not only in Barchester, Mr. Harding, but in the world at large. It is not only in Barchester that a new man is carrying out new measures and casting away the useless rubbish of past centuries. The same thing is going on throughout the country. Work is now required from every man who receives wages, and they who have to superintend the doing of work, and the paying of wages, are bound to see that this rule is carried out. New men, Mr. Harding, are now needed and are now forthcoming in the church, as well as in other professions.”

All this was wormwood to our old friend. He had never rated very high his own abilities or activity, but all the feelings of his heart were with the old clergy, and any antipathies of which his heart was susceptible were directed against those new, busy, uncharitable, self-lauding men, of whom Mr. Slope was so good an example.

“Perhaps,” said he, “the bishop will prefer a new man at the hospital?”

“By no means,” said Mr. Slope. “The bishop is very anxious that you should accept the appointment, but he wishes you should understand beforehand what will be the required duties. In the first place, a Sabbath-day school will be attached to the hospital.”

“What! For the old men?” asked Mr. Harding.

“No, Mr. Harding, not for the old men, but for the benefit of the children of such of the poor of Barchester as it may suit. The bishop will expect that you shall attend this school, and that the teachers shall be under your inspection and care.”

Mr. Harding slipped his topmost hand off the other and began to rub the calf of the leg which was supported.

“As to the old men,” continued Mr. Slope, “and the old women who are to form a part of the hospital, the bishop is desirous that you shall have morning and evening service on the premises every Sabbath, and one weekday service; that you shall preach to them once at least on Sundays; and that the whole hospital be always collected for morning and evening prayer. The bishop thinks that this will render it unnecessary that any separate seats in the cathedral should be reserved for the hospital inmates.”

Mr. Slope paused, but Mr. Harding still said nothing.

“Indeed, it would be difficult to find seats for the women; on the whole, Mr. Harding, I may as well say at once, that for people of that class the cathedral service does not appear to me the most useful—even if it be so for any class of people.”

“We will not discuss that, if you please,” said Mr. Harding.

“I am not desirous of doing so; at least, not at the present moment. I hope, however, you fully understand the bishop’s wishes about the new establishment of the hospital; and if, as I do not doubt, I shall receive from you an assurance that you accord with his lordship’s views, it will give me very great pleasure to be the bearer from his lordship to you of the presentation to the appointment.”

“But if I disagree with his lordship’s views?” asked Mr. Harding.

“But I hope you do not,” said Mr. Slope.

“But if I do?” again asked the other.

“If such unfortunately should be the case, which I can hardly conceive, I presume your own feelings will dictate to you the propriety of declining the appointment.”

“But if I accept the appointment and yet disagree with the bishop, what then?”

This question rather bothered Mr. Slope. It was true that he had talked the matter over with the bishop and had received a sort of authority for suggesting to Mr. Harding the propriety of a Sunday school and certain hospital services, but he had no authority for saying that these propositions were to be made peremptory conditions attached to the appointment. The bishop’s idea had been that Mr. Harding would of course consent and that the school would become, like the rest of those new establishments in the city, under the control of his wife and his chaplain. Mr. Slope’s idea had been more correct. He intended that Mr. Harding should refuse the situation, and that an ally of his own should get it, but he had not conceived the possibility of Mr. Harding openly accepting the appointment and as openly rejecting the conditions.

“It is not, I presume, probable,” said he, “that you will accept from the hands of the bishop a piece of preferment with a fixed predetermination to disacknowledge the duties attached to it.”

“If I become warden,” said Mr. Harding, “and neglect my duty, the bishop has means by which he can remedy the grievance.”

“I hardly expected such an argument from you, or I may say the suggestion of such a line of conduct,” said Mr. Slope with a great look of injured virtue.

“Nor did I expect such a proposition.”

“I shall be glad at any rate to know what answer I am to make to his lordship,” said Mr. Slope.

“I will take an early opportunity of seeing his lordship myself,” said Mr. Harding.

“Such an arrangement,” said Mr. Slope, “will hardly give his lordship satisfaction. Indeed, it is impossible that the bishop should himself see every clergyman in the diocese on every subject of patronage that may arise. The bishop, I believe, did see you on the matter, and I really cannot see why he should be troubled to do so again.”

“Do you know, Mr. Slope, how long I have been officiating as a clergyman in this city?” Mr. Slope’s wish was now nearly fulfilled. Mr. Harding had become angry, and it was probable that he might commit himself.

“I really do not see what that has to do with the question. You cannot think the bishop would be justified in allowing you to regard as a sinecure a situation that requires an active, man merely because you have been employed for many years in the cathedral.”

“But it might induce the bishop to see me, if I asked him to do so. I shall consult my friends in this matter, Mr. Slope; but I mean to be guilty of no subterfuge—you may tell the bishop that as I altogether disagree with his views about the hospital, I shall decline the situation if I find that any such conditions are attached to it as those you have suggested;” and so saying, Mr. Harding took his hat and went his way.

Mr. Slope was contented. He considered himself at liberty to accept Mr. Harding’s last speech as an absolute refusal of the appointment. At least, he so represented it to the bishop and to Mrs. Proudie.

“That is very surprising,” said the bishop.

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Proudie; “you little know how determined the whole set of them are to withstand your authority.”

“But Mr. Harding was so anxious for it,” said the bishop.

“Yes,” said Mr. Slope, “if he can hold it without the slightest acknowledgement of your lordship’s jurisdiction.”

“That is out of the question,” said the bishop.

“I should imagine it to be quite so,” said the chaplain.

“Indeed, I should think so,” said the lady.

“I really am sorry for it,” said the bishop.

“I don’t know that there is much cause for sorrow,” said the lady. “Mr. Quiverful is a much more deserving man, more in need of it, and one who will make himself much more useful in the close neighbourhood of the palace.”

“I suppose I had better see Quiverful?” said the chaplain.

“I suppose you had,” said the bishop.

CHAPTER XIII

The Rubbish Cart

Mr. Harding was not a happy man as he walked down the palace pathway and stepped out into the close. His preferment and pleasant house were a second time gone from him, but that he could endure. He had been schooled and insulted by a man young enough to be his son, but that he could put up with. He could even draw from the very injuries which had been inflicted on him some of that consolation which we may believe martyrs always receive from the injustice of their own sufferings, and which is generally proportioned in its strength to the extent of cruelty with which martyrs are treated. He had admitted to his daughter that he wanted the comfort of his old home, and yet he could have returned to his lodgings in the High Street, if not with exaltation, at least with satisfaction, had that been all. But the venom of the chaplain’s harangue had worked into his blood, and sapped the life of his sweet contentment.

“New men are carrying out new measures and are carting away the useless rubbish of past centuries!” What cruel words these had been; and how often are they now used with all the heartless cruelty of a Slope! A man is sufficiently condemned if it can only be shown that either in politics or religion he does not belong to some new school established within the last score of years. He may then regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away. A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, and write up to it too, if that cacoethes be upon us, or else we are nought. New men and new measures, long credit and few scruples, great success or wonderful ruin, such are now the tastes of Englishmen who know how to live. Alas, alas! Under such circumstances Mr. Harding could not but feel that he was an Englishman who did not know how to live. This new doctrine of Mr. Slope and the rubbish cart, new at least at Barchester, sadly disturbed his equanimity.

“The same thing is going on throughout the whole country! Work is now required from every man who receives wages!” And had he been living all his life receiving wages and doing no work? Had he in truth so lived as to be now in his old age justly reckoned as rubbish fit only to be hidden away in some huge dust-hole? The school of men to whom he professes to belong, the Grantlys, the Gwynnes, and the old high set of Oxford divines, are afflicted with no such self-accusations as these which troubled Mr. Harding. They, as a rule, are as satisfied with the wisdom and propriety of their own conduct as can be any Mr. Slope, or any Dr. Proudie, with his own. But unfortunately for himself Mr. Harding had little of this self-reliance. When he heard himself designated as rubbish by the Slopes of the world, he had no other resource than to make inquiry within his own bosom as to the truth of the designation. Alas, alas! The evidence seemed generally to go against him.

He had professed to himself in the bishop’s parlour that in these coming sources of the sorrow of age, in these fits of sad regret from which the latter years of few reflecting men can be free, religion would suffice to comfort him. Yes, religion could console him for the loss of any worldly good, but was his religion of that active sort which would enable him so to repent of misspent years as to pass those that were left to him in a spirit of hope for the future? And such repentance itself, is it not a work of agony and of tears? It is very easy to talk of repentance, but a man has to walk over hot ploughshares before he can complete it; to be skinned alive as was St. Bartholomew; to be stuck full of arrows as was St. Sebastian; to lie broiling on a gridiron like St. Lorenzo! How if his past life required such repentance as this? Had he the energy to go through with it?

Mr. Harding, after leaving the palace, walked slowly for an hour or so beneath the shady elms of the close and then betook himself to his daughter’s house. He had at any rate made up his mind that he would go out to Plumstead to consult Dr. Grantly, and that he would in the first instance tell Eleanor what had occurred.

And now he was doomed to undergo another misery. Mr. Slope had forestalled him at the widow’s house. He had called there on the preceding afternoon. He could not, he had said, deny himself the pleasure of telling Mrs. Bold that her father was about to return to the pretty house at Hiram’s Hospital. He had been instructed by the bishop to inform Mr. Harding that the appointment would now be made at once. The bishop was of course only too happy to be able to be the means of restoring to Mr. Harding the preferment which he had so long adorned. And then by degrees Mr. Slope had introduced the subject of the pretty school which he hoped before long to see attached to the hospital. He had quite fascinated Mrs. Bold by his description of this picturesque, useful, and charitable appendage, and she had gone so far as to say that she had no doubt her father would approve, and that she herself would gladly undertake a class.

Anyone who had heard the entirely different tone and seen the entirely different manner in which Mr. Slope had spoken of this projected institution to the daughter and to the father could not have failed to own that Mr. Slope was a man of genius. He said nothing to Mrs. Bold about the hospital sermons and services, nothing about the exclusion of the old men from the cathedral, nothing about dilapidation and painting, nothing about carting away the rubbish. Eleanor had said to herself that certainly she did not like Mr. Slope personally, but that he was a very active, zealous clergyman and would no doubt be useful in Barchester. All this paved the way for much additional misery to Mr. Harding.

Eleanor put on her happiest face as she heard her father on the stairs, for she thought she had only to congratulate him; but directly she saw his face she knew that there was but little matter for congratulation. She had seen him with the same weary look of sorrow on one or two occasions before, and remembered it well. She had seen him when he first read that attack upon himself in “The Jupiter” which had ultimately caused him to resign the hospital, and she had seen him also when the archdeacon had persuaded him to remain there against his own sense of propriety and honour. She knew at a glance that his spirit was in deep trouble.

“Oh, Papa, what is it?” said she, putting down her boy to crawl upon the floor.

“I came to tell you, my dear,” said he, “that I am going out to Plumstead: you won’t come with me, I suppose?”

“To Plumstead, Papa? Shall you stay there?”

“I suppose I shall, to-night: I must consult the archdeacon about this weary hospital. Ah me! I wish I had never thought of it again.”

“Why, Papa, what is the matter?”

“I’ve been with Mr. Slope, my dear, and he isn’t the pleasantest companion in the world, at least not to me.” Eleanor gave a sort of half-blush, but she was wrong if she imagined that her father in any way alluded to her acquaintance with Mr. Slope.

“Well, Papa.”

“He wants to turn the hospital into a Sunday-school and a preaching-house, and I suppose he will have his way. I do not feel myself adapted for such an establishment, and therefore, I suppose, I must refuse the appointment.”

“What would be the harm of the school, Papa?”

“The want of a proper schoolmaster, my dear.”

“But that would of course be supplied.”

“Mr. Slope wishes to supply it by making me his schoolmaster. But as I am hardly fit for such work, I intend to decline.”

“Oh, Papa! Mr. Slope doesn’t intend that. He was here yesterday, and what he intends—”

“He was here yesterday, was he?” asked Mr. Harding.

“Yes, Papa.”

“And talking about the hospital?”

“He was saying how glad he would be, and the bishop too, to see you back there again. And then he spoke about the Sunday-school; and to tell the truth I agreed with him; and I thought you would have done so too. Mr. Slope spoke of a school, not inside the hospital, but just connected with it, of which you would be the patron and visitor; and I thought you would have liked such a school as that; and I promised to look after it and to take a class—and it all seemed so very—. But, oh, Papa! I shall be so miserable if I find I have done wrong.”

“Nothing wrong at all, my dear,” said he gently, very gently rejecting his daughter’s caress. “There can be nothing wrong in your wishing to make yourself useful; indeed, you ought to do so by all means. Everyone must now exert himself who would not choose to go to the wall.” Poor Mr. Harding thus attempted in his misery to preach the new doctrine to his child. “Himself or herself, it’s all the same,” he continued; “you will be quite right, my dear, to do something of this sort; but—”

“Well, Papa.”

“I am not quite sure that if I were you I would select Mr. Slope for my guide.”

“But I never have done so and never shall.”

“It would be very wicked of me to speak evil of him, for to tell the truth I know no evil of him; but I am not quite sure that he is honest. That he is not gentlemanlike in his manners, of that I am quite sure.”

“I never thought of taking him for my guide, Papa.”

“As for myself, my dear,” continued he, “we know the old proverb—’It’s bad teaching an old dog tricks.’ I must decline the Sunday-school, and shall therefore probably decline the hospital also. But I will first see your brother-in-law.” So he took up his hat, kissed the baby, and withdrew, leaving Eleanor in as low spirits as himself.

All this was a great aggravation to his misery. He had so few with whom to sympathize that he could not afford to be cut off from the one whose sympathy was of the most value to him. And yet it seemed probable that this would be the case. He did not own to himself that he wished his daughter to hate Mr. Slope, yet had she expressed such a feeling there would have been very little bitterness in the rebuke he would have given her for so uncharitable a state of mind. The fact, however, was that she was on friendly terms with Mr. Slope, that she coincided with his views, adhered at once to his plans, and listened with delight to his teaching. Mr. Harding hardly wished his daughter to hate the man, but he would have preferred that to her loving him.

He walked away to the inn to order a fly, went home to put up his carpet-bag, and then started for Plumstead. There was, at any rate, no danger that the archdeacon would fraternize with Mr. Slope; but then he would recommend internecine war, public appeals, loud reproaches, and all the paraphernalia of open battle. Now that alternative was hardly more to Mr. Harding’s taste than the other.

When Mr. Harding reached the parsonage, he found that the archdeacon was out, and would not be home till dinnertime, so he began his complaint to his elder daughter. Mrs. Grantly entertained quite as strong an antagonism to Mr. Slope as did her husband; she was also quite as alive to the necessity of combating the Proudie faction, of supporting the old church interest of the close, of keeping in her own set such of the loaves and fishes as duly belonged to it; and was quite as well prepared as her lord to carry on the battle without giving or taking quarter. Not that she was a woman prone to quarrelling, or ill-inclined to live at peace with her clerical neighbours; but she felt, as did the archdeacon, that the presence of Mr. Slope in Barchester was an insult to everyone connected with the late bishop, and that his assumed dominion in the diocese was a spiritual injury to her husband. Hitherto people had little guessed how bitter Mrs. Grantly could be. She lived on the best of terms with all the rectors’ wives around her. She had been popular with all the ladies connected with the close. Though much the wealthiest of the ecclesiastical matrons of the county, she had so managed her affairs that her carriage and horses had given umbrage to none. She had never thrown herself among the county grandees so as to excite the envy of other clergymen’s wives. She never talked too loudly of earls and countesses, or boasted that she gave her governess sixty pounds a year, or her cook seventy. Mrs. Grantly had lived the life of a wise, discreet, peace-making woman, and the people of Barchester were surprised at the amount of military vigour she displayed as general of the feminine Grantlyite forces.

Mrs. Grantly soon learned that her sister Eleanor had promised to assist Mr. Slope in the affairs of the hospital school, and it was on this point that her attention first fixed itself.

“How can Eleanor endure him?” said she.

“He is a very crafty man,” said her father, “and his craft has been successful in making Eleanor think that he is a meek, charitable, good clergyman. God forgive me, if I wrong him, but such is not his true character in my opinion.”

“His true character, indeed!” said she, with something approaching scorn for her father’s moderation. “I only hope he won’t have craft enough to make Eleanor forget herself and her position.”

“Do you mean marry him?” said he, startled out of his usual demeanour by the abruptness and horror of so dreadful a proposition.

“What is there so improbable in it? Of course that would be his own object if he thought he had any chance of success. Eleanor has a thousand a year entirely at her own disposal, and what better fortune could fall to Mr. Slope’s lot than the transferring of the disposal of such a fortune to himself?”

“But you can’t think she likes him, Susan?”

“Why not?” said Susan. “Why shouldn’t she like him? He’s just the sort of man to get on with a woman left, as she is, with no one to look after her.”

“Look after her!” said the unhappy father; “don’t we look after her?”

“Ah, Papa, how innocent you are! Of course it was to be expected that Eleanor should marry again. I should be the last to advise her against it, if she would only wait the proper time, and then marry at least a gentleman.”

“But you don’t really mean to say that you suppose Eleanor has ever thought of marrying Mr. Slope? Why, Mr. Bold has only been dead a year.”

“Eighteen months,” said his daughter. “But I don’t suppose Eleanor has ever thought about it. It is very probable, though, that he has; and that he will try and make her do so; and that he will succeed too, if we don’t take care what we are about.”

This was quite a new phase of the affair to poor Mr. Harding. To have thrust upon him as his son-in-law, as the husband of his favourite child, the only man in the world whom he really positively disliked, would be a misfortune which he felt he would not know how to endure patiently. But then, could there be any ground for so dreadful a surmise? In all worldly matters he was apt to look upon the opinion of his eldest daughter as one generally sound and trustworthy. In her appreciation of character, of motives, and the probable conduct both of men and women, she was usually not far wrong. She had early foreseen the marriage of Eleanor and John Bold; she had at a glance deciphered the character of the new bishop and his chaplain; could it possibly be that her present surmise should ever come forth as true?

“But you don’t think that she likes him?” said Mr. Harding again.

“Well, Papa, I can’t say that I think she dislikes him as she ought to do. Why is he visiting there as a confidential friend, when he never ought to have been admitted inside the house? Why is it that she speaks to him about your welfare and your position, as she clearly has done? At the bishop’s party the other night I saw her talking to him for half an hour at the stretch.”

“I thought Mr. Slope seemed to talk to nobody there but that daughter of Stanhope’s,” said Mr. Harding, wishing to defend his child.

“Oh, Mr. Slope is a cleverer man than you think of, Papa, and keeps more than one iron in the fire.”

To give Eleanor her due, any suspicion as to the slightest inclination on her part towards Mr. Slope was a wrong to her. She had no more idea of marrying Mr. Slope than she had of marrying the bishop, and the idea that Mr. Slope would present himself as a suitor had never occurred to her. Indeed, to give her her due again, she had never thought about suitors since her husband’s death. But nevertheless it was true that she had overcome all that repugnance to the man which was so strongly felt for him by the rest of the Grantly faction. She had forgiven him his sermon. She had forgiven him his Low Church tendencies, his Sabbath-schools, and puritanical observances. She had forgiven his pharisaical arrogance, and even his greasy face and oily, vulgar manners. Having agreed to overlook such offences as these, why should she not in time be taught to regard Mr. Slope as a suitor?

And as to him, it must also be affirmed that he was hitherto equally innocent of the crime imputed to him. How it had come to pass that a man whose eyes were generally so widely open to everything around him had not perceived that this young widow was rich as well as beautiful, cannot probably now be explained. But such was the fact. Mr. Slope had ingratiated himself with Mrs. Bold, merely as he had done with other ladies, in order to strengthen his party in the city. He subsequently amended his error, but it was not till after the interview between him and Mr. Harding.

CHAPTER XIV

The New Champion

The archdeacon did not return to the parsonage till close upon the hour of dinner, and there was therefore no time to discuss matters before that important ceremony. He seemed to be in an especial good humour, and welcomed his father-in-law with a sort of jovial earnestness that was usual with him when things on which he was intent were going on as he would have them.

“It’s all settled, my dear,” said he to his wife as he washed his hands in his dressing-room, while she, according to her wont, sat listening in the bedroom; “Arabin has agreed to accept the living. He’ll be here next week.” And the archdeacon scrubbed his hands and rubbed his face with a violent alacrity, which showed that Arabin’s coming was a great point gained.

“Will he come here to Plumstead?” said the wife.

“He has promised to stay a month with us,” said the archdeacon, “so that he may see what his parish is like. You’ll like Arabin very much. He’s a gentleman in every respect, and full of humour.”

“He’s very queer, isn’t he?” asked the lady.

“Well—he is a little odd in some of his fancies, but there’s nothing about him you won’t like. He is as staunch a churchman as there is at Oxford. I really don’t know what we should do without Arabin. It’s a great thing for me to have him so near me, and if anything can put Slope down, Arabin will do it.”

The Reverend Francis Arabin was a fellow of Lazarus, the favoured disciple of the great Dr. Gwynne, a High Churchman at all points—so high, indeed, that at one period of his career he had all but toppled over into the cesspool of Rome—a poet and also a polemical writer, a great pet in the common-rooms at Oxford, an eloquent clergyman, a droll, odd, humorous, energetic, conscientious man, and, as the archdeacon had boasted of him, a thorough gentleman. As he will hereafter be brought more closely to our notice, it is now only necessary to add that he had just been presented to the vicarage of St. Ewold by Dr. Grantly, in whose gift as archdeacon the living lay. St. Ewold is a parish lying just without the city of Barchester. The suburbs of the new town, indeed, are partly within its precincts, and the pretty church and parsonage are not much above a mile distant from the city gate.

St. Ewold is not a rich piece of preferment—it is worth some three or four hundred a year at most, and has generally been held by a clergyman attached to the cathedral choir. The archdeacon, however, felt, when the living on this occasion became vacant, that it imperatively behoved him to aid the force of his party with some tower of strength, if any such tower could be got to occupy St. Ewold’s. He had discussed the matter with his brethren in Barchester, not in any weak spirit as the holder of patronage to be used for his own or his family’s benefit, but as one to whom was committed a trust on the due administration of which much of the church’s welfare might depend. He had submitted to them the name of Mr. Arabin, as though the choice had rested with them all in conclave, and they had unanimously admitted that, if Mr. Arabin would accept St. Ewold’s, no better choice could possibly be made.

If Mr. Arabin would accept St. Ewold’s! There lay the difficulty. Mr. Arabin was a man standing somewhat prominently before the world, that is, before the Church of England world. He was not a rich man, it is true, for he held no preferment but his fellowship; but he was a man not over-anxious for riches, not married of course, and one whose time was greatly taken up in discussing, both in print and on platforms, the privileges and practices of the church to which he belonged. As the archdeacon had done battle for its temporalities, so did Mr. Arabin do battle for its spiritualities, and both had done so conscientiously; that is, not so much each for his own benefit as for that of others.

Holding such a position as Mr. Arabin did, there was much reason to doubt whether he would consent to become the parson of St. Ewold’s, and Dr. Grantly had taken the trouble to go himself to Oxford on the matter. Dr. Gwynne and Dr. Grantly together had succeeded in persuading this eminent divine that duty required him to go to Barchester. There were wheels within wheels in this affair. For some time past Mr. Arabin had been engaged in a tremendous controversy with no less a person than Mr. Slope, respecting the apostolic succession. These two gentlemen had never seen each other, but they had been extremely bitter in print. Mr. Slope had endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr. Arabin an owl, and Mr. Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr. Slope was an infidel. This battle had been commenced in the columns of “The Jupiter,” a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to Mr. Slope’s view of the case. The matter, however, had become too tedious for the readers of “The Jupiter,” and a little note had therefore been appended to one of Mr. Slope’s most telling rejoinders, in which it had been stated that no further letters from the reverend gentlemen could be inserted except as advertisements.

Other methods of publication were, however, found, less expensive than advertisements in “The Jupiter,” and the war went on merrily. Mr. Slope declared that the main part of the consecration of a clergyman was the self-devotion of the inner man to the duties of the ministry. Mr. Arabin contended that a man was not consecrated at all, had, indeed, no single attribute of a clergyman, unless he became so through the imposition of some bishop’s hands, who had become a bishop through the imposition of other hands, and so on in a direct line to one of the apostles. Each had repeatedly hung the other on the horns of a dilemma, but neither seemed to be a whit the worse for the hanging; and so the war went on merrily.

Whether or no the near neighbourhood of the foe may have acted in any way as an inducement to Mr. Arabin to accept the living of St. Ewold, we will not pretend to say; but it had at any rate been settled in Dr. Gwynne’s library, at Lazarus, that he would accept it, and that he would lend his assistance towards driving the enemy out of Barchester, or, at any rate, silencing him while he remained there. Mr. Arabin intended to keep his rooms at Oxford and to have the assistance of a curate at St. Ewold, but he promised to give as much time as possible to the neighbourhood of Barchester, and from so great a man Dr. Grantly was quite satisfied with such a promise. It was no small part of the satisfaction derivable from such an arrangement that Bishop Proudie would be forced to institute into a living immediately under his own nose the enemy of his favourite chaplain.

All through dinner the archdeacon’s good humour shone brightly in his face. He ate of the good things heartily, he drank wine with his wife and daughter, he talked pleasantly of his doings at Oxford, told his father-in-law that he ought to visit Dr. Gwynne at Lazarus, and launched out again in praise of Mr. Arabin.

“Is Mr. Arabin married, Papa?” asked Griselda.

“No, my dear, the fellow of a college is never married.”

“Is he a young man, Papa?”

“About forty, I believe,” said the archdeacon.

“Oh!” said Griselda. Had her father said eighty, Mr. Arabin would not have appeared to her to be very much older.

When the two gentlemen were left alone over their wine, Mr. Harding told his tale of woe. But even this, sad as it was, did not much diminish the archdeacon’s good humour, though it greatly added to his pugnacity.

“He can’t do it,” said Dr. Grantly over and over again, as his father-in-law explained to him the terms on which the new warden of the hospital was to be appointed; “he can’t do it. What he says is not worth the trouble of listening to. He can’t alter the duties of the place.”

“Who can’t?” asked the ex-warden.

“Neither the bishop nor the chaplain, nor yet the bishop’s wife, who, I take it, has really more to say to such matters than either of the other two. The whole body corporate of the palace together have no power to turn the warden of the hospital into a Sunday-schoolmaster.”

“But the bishop has the power to appoint whom he pleases, and—”

“I don’t know that; I rather think he’ll find he has no such power. Let him try it, and see what the press will say. For once we shall have the popular cry on our side. But Proudie, ass as he is, knows the world too well to get such a hornet’s nest about his ears.”

Mr. Harding winced at the idea of the press. He had had enough of that sort of publicity, and was unwilling to be shown up a second time either as a monster or as a martyr. He gently remarked that he hoped the newspapers would not get hold of his name again, and then suggested that perhaps it would be better that he should abandon his object. “I am getting old,” said he, “and after all I doubt whether I am fit to undertake new duties.”

“New duties?” said the archdeacon; “don’t I tell you there shall be no new duties?”

“Or perhaps old duties either,” said Mr. Harding; “I think I will remain content as I am.” The picture of Mr. Slope carting away the rubbish was still present to his mind.

The archdeacon drank off his glass of claret and prepared himself to be energetic. “I do hope,” said he, “that you are not going to be so weak as to allow such a man as Mr. Slope to deter you from doing what you know it is your duty to do. You know it is your duty to resume your place at the hospital now that parliament has so settled the stipend as to remove those difficulties which induced you to resign it. You cannot deny this, and should your timidity now prevent you from doing so, your conscience will hereafter never forgive you,” and as he finished this clause of his speech, he pushed over the bottle to his companion.

“Your conscience will never forgive you,” he continued. “You resigned the place from conscientious scruples, scruples which I greatly respected, though I did not share them. All your friends respected them, and you left your old house as rich in reputation as you were ruined in fortune. It is now expected that you will return. Dr. Gwynne was saying only the other day—”

“Dr. Gwynne does not reflect how much older a man I am now than when he last saw me.”

“Old—nonsense,” said the archdeacon; “you never thought yourself old till you listened to the impudent trash of that coxcomb at the palace.”

“I shall be sixty-five if I live till November,” said Mr. Harding.

“And seventy-five, if you live till November ten years,” said the archdeacon. “And you bid fair to be as efficient then as you were ten years ago. But for heaven’s sake let us have no pretence in this matter. Your plea of old age is a pretence. But you’re not drinking your wine. It is only a pretence. The fact is, you are half-afraid of this Slope, and would rather subject yourself to comparative poverty and discomfort than come to blows with a man who will trample on you, if you let him.”

“I certainly don’t like coming to blows, if I can help it.”

“Nor I neither—but sometimes we can’t help it. This man’s object is to induce you to refuse the hospital, that he may put some creature of his own into it; that he may show his power and insult us all by insulting you, whose cause and character are so intimately bound up with that of the chapter. You owe it to us all to resist him in this, even if you have no solicitude for yourself. But surely, for your own sake, you will not be so lily-livered as to fall into this trap which he has baited for you and let him take the very bread out of your mouth without a struggle.”

Mr. Harding did not like being called lily-livered, and was rather inclined to resent it. “I doubt there is any true courage,” said he, “in squabbling for money.”

“If honest men did not squabble for money, in this wicked world of ours, the dishonest men would get it all, and I do not see that the cause of virtue would be much improved. No—we must use the means which we have. If we were to carry your argument home, we might give away every shilling of revenue which the church has, and I presume you are not prepared to say that the church would be strengthened by such a sacrifice.” The archdeacon filled his glass and then emptied it, drinking with much reverence a silent toast to the well-being and permanent security of those temporalities which were so dear to his soul.

“I think all quarrels between a clergyman and his bishop should be avoided,” said Mr. Harding.

“I think so too, but it is quite as much the duty of the bishop to look to that as of his inferior. I tell you what, my friend; I’ll see the bishop in this matter—that is, if you will allow me—and you may be sure I will not compromise you. My opinion is that all this trash about the Sunday-schools and the sermons has originated wholly with Slope and Mrs. Proudie, and that the bishop knows nothing about it. The bishop can’t very well refuse to see me, and I’ll come upon him when he has neither his wife nor his chaplain by him. I think you’ll find that it will end in his sending you the appointment without any condition whatever. And as to the seats in the cathedral, we may safely leave that to Mr. Dean. I believe the fool positively thinks that the bishop could walk away with the cathedral if he pleased.”

And so the matter was arranged between them. Mr. Harding had come expressly for advice, and therefore felt himself bound to take the advice given him. He had known, moreover, beforehand that the archdeacon would not hear of his giving the matter up, and accordingly, though he had in perfect good faith put forward his own views, he was prepared to yield.

They therefore went into the drawing-room in good humour with each other, and the evening passed pleasantly in prophetic discussions on the future wars of Arabin and Slope. The frogs and the mice would be nothing to them, nor the angers of Agamemnon and Achilles. How the archdeacon rubbed his hands and plumed himself on the success of his last move. He could not himself descend into the arena with Slope, but Arabin would have no such scruples. Arabin was exactly the man for such work, and the only man whom he knew that was fit for it.

The archdeacon’s good humour and high buoyancy continued till, when reclining on his pillow, Mrs. Grantly commenced to give him her view of the state of affairs at Barchester. And then certainly he was startled. The last words he said that night were as follows:

“If she does, by heaven I’ll never speak to her again. She dragged me into the mire once, but I’ll not pollute myself with such filth as that—” And the archdeacon gave a shudder which shook the whole room, so violently was he convulsed with the thought which then agitated his mind.

Now in this matter the widow Bold was scandalously ill-treated by her relatives. She had spoken to the man three or four times, and had expressed her willingness to teach in a Sunday-school. Such was the full extent of her sins in the matter of Mr. Slope. Poor Eleanor! But time will show.

The next morning Mr. Harding returned to Barchester, no further word having been spoken in his hearing respecting Mr. Slope’s acquaintance with his younger daughter. But he observed that the archdeacon at breakfast was less cordial than he had been on the preceding evening.

CHAPTER XV

The Widow’s Suitors

Mr. Slope lost no time in availing himself of the bishop’s permission to see Mr. Quiverful, and it was in his interview with this worthy pastor that he first learned that Mrs. Bold was worth the wooing. He rode out to Puddingdale to communicate to the embryo warden the goodwill of the bishop in his favour, and during the discussion on the matter it was not unnatural that the pecuniary resources of Mr. Harding and his family should become the subject of remark.

Mr. Quiverful, with his fourteen children and his four hundred a year, was a very poor man, and the prospect of this new preferment, which was to be held together with his living, was very grateful to him. To what clergyman so circumstanced would not such a prospect be very grateful? But Mr. Quiverful had long been acquainted with Mr. Harding, and had received kindness at his hands, so that his heart misgave him as he thought of supplanting a friend at the hospital. Nevertheless, he was extremely civil, cringingly civil, to Mr. Slope; treated him quite as the great man; entreated this great man to do him the honour to drink a glass of sherry, at which, as it was very poor Marsala, the now pampered Slope turned up his nose; and ended by declaring his extreme obligation to the bishop and Mr. Slope and his great desire to accept the hospital, if—if it were certainly the case that Mr. Harding had refused it.

What man as needy as Mr. Quiverful would have been more disinterested?

“Mr. Harding did positively refuse it,” said Mr. Slope with a certain air of offended dignity, “when he heard of the conditions to which the appointment is now subjected. Of course you understand, Mr. Quiverful, that the same conditions will be imposed on yourself.”

Mr. Quiverful cared nothing for the conditions. He would have undertaken to preach any number of sermons Mr. Slope might have chosen to dictate, and to pass every remaining hour of his Sundays within the walls of a Sunday-school. What sacrifices, or at any rate, what promises would have been too much to make for such an addition to his income, and for such a house! But his mind still recurred to Mr. Harding.

“To be sure,” said he; “Mr. Harding’s daughter is very rich, and why should he trouble himself with the hospital?”

“You mean Mrs. Grantly,” said Slope.

“I meant his widowed daughter,” said the other. “Mrs. Bold has twelve hundred a year of her own, and I suppose Mr. Harding means to live with her.”

“Twelve hundred a year of her own!” said Slope, and very shortly afterwards took his leave, avoiding, as far as it was possible for him to do, any further allusion to the hospital. “Twelve hundred a year!” said he to himself as he rode slowly home. If it were the fact that Mrs. Bold had twelve hundred a year of her own, what a fool would he be to oppose her father’s return to his old place. The train of Mr. Slope’s ideas will probably be plain to all my readers. Why should he not make the twelve hundred a year his own? And if he did so, would it not be well for him to have a father-in-law comfortably provided with the good things of this world? Would it not, moreover, be much more easy for him to gain the daughter if he did all in his power to forward the father’s views?

These questions presented themselves to him in a very forcible way, and yet there were many points of doubt. If he resolved to restore to Mr. Harding his former place, he must take the necessary steps for doing so at once; he must immediately talk over the bishop, quarrel on the matter with Mrs. Proudie, whom he knew he could not talk over, and let Mr. Quiverful know that he had been a little too precipitate as to Mr. Harding’s positive refusal. That he could effect all this he did not doubt, but he did not wish to effect it for nothing. He did not wish to give way to Mr. Harding and then be rejected by the daughter. He did not wish to lose one influential friend before he had gained another.

And thus he rode home, meditating many things in his mind. It occurred to him that Mrs. Bold was sister-in-law to the archdeacon, and that not even for twelve hundred a year would he submit to that imperious man. A rich wife was a great desideratum to him, but success in his profession was still greater; there were, moreover, other rich women who might be willing to become wives; and after all, this twelve hundred a year might, when inquired into, melt away into some small sum utterly beneath his notice. Then also he remembered that Mrs. Bold had a son.

Another circumstance also much influenced him, though it was one which may almost be said to have influenced him against his will. The vision of the Signora Neroni was perpetually before his eyes. It would be too much to say that Mr. Slope was lost in love, but yet he thought, and kept continually thinking, that he had never seen so beautiful a woman. He was a man whose nature was open to such impulses, and the wiles of the Italianized charmer had been thoroughly successful in imposing upon his thoughts. We will not talk about his heart: not that he had no heart, but because his heart had little to do with his present feelings. His taste had been pleased, his eyes charmed, and his vanity gratified. He had been dazzled by a sort of loveliness which he had never before seen, and had been caught by an easy, free, voluptuous manner which was perfectly new to him. He had never been so tempted before, and the temptation was now irresistible. He had not owned to himself that he cared for this woman more than for others around him, but yet he thought often of the time when he might see her next, and made, almost unconsciously, little cunning plans for seeing her frequently.

He had called at Dr. Stanhope’s house the day after the bishop’s party, and then the warmth of his admiration had been fed with fresh fuel. If the signora had been kind in her manner and flattering in her speech when lying upon the bishop’s sofa, with the eyes of so many on her, she had been much more so in her mother’s drawing-room, with no one present but her sister to repress either her nature or her art. Mr. Slope had thus left her quite bewildered, and could not willingly admit into his brain any scheme a part of which would be the necessity of his abandoning all further special friendship with this lady.

And so he slowly rode along, very meditative.

And here the author must beg it to be remembered that Mr. Slope was not in all things a bad man. His motives, like those of most men, were mixed, and though his conduct was generally very different from that which we would wish to praise, it was actuated perhaps as often as that of the majority of the world by a desire to do his duty. He believed in the religion which he taught, harsh, unpalatable, uncharitable as that religion was. He believed those whom he wished to get under his hoof, the Grantlys and Gwynnes of the church, to be the enemies of that religion. He believed himself to be a pillar of strength, destined to do great things, and with that subtle, selfish, ambiguous sophistry to which the minds of all men are so subject, he had taught himself to think that in doing much for the promotion of his own interests, he was doing much also for the promotion of religion. But Mr. Slope had never been an immoral man. Indeed, he had resisted temptations to immorality with a strength of purpose that was creditable to him. He had early in life devoted himself to works which were not compatible with the ordinary pleasures of youth, and he had abandoned such pleasures not without a struggle. It must therefore be conceived that he did not admit to himself that he warmly admired the beauty of a married woman without heart-felt stings of conscience; and to pacify that conscience he had to teach himself that the nature of his admiration was innocent.

And thus he rode along meditative and ill at ease. His conscience had not a word to say against his choosing the widow and her fortune. That he looked upon as a godly work rather than otherwise; as a deed which, if carried through, would redound to his credit as a Christian. On that side lay no future remorse, no conduct which he might probably have to forget, no inward stings. If it should turn out to be really the fact that Mrs. Bold had twelve hundred a year at her own disposal, Mr. Slope would rather look upon it as a duty which he owed his religion to make himself the master of the wife and the money; as a duty too, in which some amount of self-sacrifice would be necessary. He would have to give up his friendship with the signora, his resistance to Mr. Harding, his antipathy—no, he found on mature self-examination that he could not bring himself to give up his antipathy to Dr. Grantly. He would marry the lady as the enemy of her brother-in-law if such an arrangement suited her; if not, she must look elsewhere for a husband.

It was with such resolve as this that he reached Barchester. He would at once ascertain what the truth might be as to the lady’s wealth, and having done this he would be ruled by circumstances in his conduct respecting the hospital. If he found that he could turn round and secure the place for Mr. Harding without much self-sacrifice, he would do so; but if not, he would woo the daughter in opposition to the father. But in no case would he succumb to the archdeacon.

He saw his horse taken round to the stable, and immediately went forth to commence his inquiries. To give Mr. Slope his due, he was not a man who ever let much grass grow under his feet.

Poor Eleanor! She was doomed to be the intended victim of more schemes than one.

About the time that Mr. Slope was visiting the vicar of Puddingdale, a discussion took place respecting her charms and wealth at Dr. Stanhope’s house in the close. There had been morning callers there, and people had told some truth and also some falsehood respecting the property which John Bold had left behind him. By degrees the visitors went, and as the doctor went with them, and as the doctor’s wife had not made her appearance, Charlotte Stanhope and her brother were left together. He was sitting idly at the table, scrawling caricatures of Barchester notables, then yawning, then turning over a book or two, and evidently at a loss how to kill his time without much labour.

“You haven’t done much, Bertie, about getting any orders,” said his sister.

“Orders!” said he; “who on earth is there at Barchester to give one orders? Who among the people here could possibly think it worth his while to have his head done into marble?”

“Then you mean to give up your profession,” said she.

“No, I don’t,” said he, going on with some absurd portrait of the bishop. “Look at that, Lotte; isn’t it the little man all over, apron and all? I’d go on with my profession at once, as you call it, if the governor would set me up with a studio in London; but as to sculpture at Barchester—I suppose half the people here don’t know what a torso means.”

“The governor will not give you a shilling to start you in London,” said Lotte. “Indeed, he can’t give you what would be sufficient, for he has not got it. But you might start yourself very well, if you pleased.”

“How the deuce am I to do it?” said he.

“To tell you the truth, Bertie, you’ll never make a penny by any profession.”

“That’s what I often think myself,” said he, not in the least offended. “Some men have a great gift of making money, but they can’t spend it. Others can’t put two shillings together, but they have a great talent for all sorts of outlay. I begin to think that my genius is wholly in the latter line.”

“How do you mean to live then?” asked the sister.

“I suppose I must regard myself as a young raven and look for heavenly manna; besides, we have all got something when the governor goes.”

“Yes—you’ll have enough to supply yourself with gloves and boots; that is, if the Jews have not got the possession of it all. I believe they have the most of it already. I wonder, Bertie, at your indifference; that you, with your talents and personal advantages, should never try to settle yourself in life. I look forward with dread to the time when the governor must go. Mother, and Madeline, and I—we shall be poor enough, but you will have absolutely nothing.”

“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” said Bertie.

“Will you take my advice?” said his sister.

“Cela dépend,” said the brother.

“Will you marry a wife with money?”

“At any rate,” said he, “I won’t marry one without; wives with money a’nt so easy to get now-a-days; the parsons pick them all up.”

“And a parson will pick up the wife I mean for you, if you do not look quickly about it; the wife I mean is Mrs. Bold.”

“Whew-w-w-w!” whistled Bertie, “a widow!”

“She is very beautiful,” said Charlotte.

“With a son and heir all ready to my hand,” said Bertie.

“A baby that will very likely die,” said Charlotte.

“I don’t see that,” said Bertie. “But however, he may live for me—I don’t wish to kill him; only, it must be owned that a ready-made family is a drawback.”

“There is only one after all,” pleaded Charlotte.

“And that a very little one, as the maidservant said,” rejoined Bertie.

“Beggars mustn’t be choosers, Bertie; you can’t have everything.”

“God knows I am not unreasonable,” said he, “nor yet opinionated, and if you’ll arrange it all for me, Lotte, I’ll marry the lady. Only mark this: the money must be sure, and the income at my own disposal, at any rate for the lady’s life.”

Charlotte was explaining to her brother that he must make love for himself if he meant to carry on the matter, and was encouraging him to do so by warm eulogiums on Eleanor’s beauty, when the signora was brought into the drawing-room. When at home, and subject to the gaze of none but her own family, she allowed herself to be dragged about by two persons, and her two bearers now deposited her on her sofa. She was not quite so grand in her apparel as she had been at the bishop’s party, but yet she was dressed with much care, and though there was a look of care and pain about her eyes, she was, even by daylight, extremely beautiful.

“Well, Madeline, so I’m going to be married,” Bertie began as soon as the servants had withdrawn.

“There’s no other foolish thing left that you haven’t done,” said Madeline, “and therefore you are quite right to try that.”

“Oh, you think it’s a foolish thing, do you?” said he. “There’s Lotte advising me to marry by all means. But on such a subject your opinion ought to be the best; you have experience to guide you.”

“Yes, I have,” said Madeline with a sort of harsh sadness in her tone, which seemed to say—”What is it to you if I am sad? I have never asked your sympathy.”

Bertie was sorry when he saw that she was hurt by what he said, and he came and squatted on the floor close before her face to make his peace with her.

“Come, Mad, I was only joking; you know that. But in sober earnest, Lotte is advising me to marry. She wants me to marry this Mrs. Bold. She’s a widow with lots of tin, a fine baby, a beautiful complexion, and the George and Dragon hotel up in the High Street. By Jove, Lotte, if I marry her, I’ll keep the public-house myself—it’s just the life to suit me.”

“What,” said Madeline, “that vapid, swarthy creature in the widow’s cap, who looked as though her clothes had been stuck on her back with a pitchfork!” The signora never allowed any woman to be beautiful.

“Instead of being vapid,” said Lotte, “I call her a very lovely woman. She was by far the loveliest woman in the rooms the other night; that is, excepting you, Madeline.”

Even the compliment did not soften the asperity of the maimed beauty. “Every woman is charming according to Lotte,” she said; “I never knew an eye with so little true appreciation. In the first place, what woman on earth could look well in such a thing as that she had on her head.”

“Of course she wears a widow’s cap, but she’ll put that off when Bertie marries her.”

“I don’t see any of course in it,” said Madeline. “The death of twenty husbands should not make me undergo such a penance. It is as much a relic of paganism as the sacrifice of a Hindu woman at the burning of her husband’s body. If not so bloody, it is quite as barbarous, and quite as useless.”

“But you don’t blame her for that,” said Bertie. “She does it because it’s the custom of the country. People would think ill of her if she didn’t do it.”

“Exactly,” said Madeline. “She is just one of those English nonentities who would tie her head up in a bag for three months every summer, if her mother and her grandmother had tied up their heads before her. It would never occur to her to think whether there was any use in submitting to such a nuisance.”

“It’s very hard in a country like England, for a young woman to set herself in opposition to prejudices of that sort,” said the prudent Charlotte.

“What you mean is that it’s very hard for a fool not to be a fool,” said Madeline.

Bertie Stanhope had been so much knocked about the world from his earliest years that he had not retained much respect for the gravity of English customs; but even to his mind an idea presented itself that, perhaps in a wife, true British prejudice would not in the long run be less agreeable than Anglo-Italian freedom from restraint. He did not exactly say so, but he expressed the idea in another way.

“I fancy,” said he, “that if I were to die, and then walk, I should think that my widow looked better in one of those caps than any other kind of head-dress.”

“Yes—and you’d fancy also that she could do nothing better than shut herself up and cry for you, or else burn herself. But she would think differently. She’d probably wear one of those horrid she-helmets, because she’d want the courage not to do so; but she’d wear it with a heart longing for the time when she might be allowed to throw it off. I hate such shallow false pretences. For my part I would let the world say what it pleased, and show no grief if I felt none—and perhaps not, if I did.”

“But wearing a widow’s cap won’t lessen her fortune,” said Charlotte.

“Or increase it,” said Madeline. “Then why on earth does she do it?”

“But Lotte’s object is to make her put it off,” said Bertie.

“If it be true that she has got twelve hundred a year quite at her own disposal, and she be not utterly vulgar in her manners, I would advise you to marry her. I dare say she’s to be had for the asking: and as you are not going to marry her for love, it doesn’t much matter whether she is good-looking or not. As to your really marrying a woman for love, I don’t believe you are fool enough for that.”

“Oh, Madeline!” exclaimed her sister.

“And oh, Charlotte!” said the other.

“You don’t mean to say that no man can love a woman unless he be a fool?”

“I mean very much the same thing—that any man who is willing to sacrifice his interest to get possession of a pretty face is a fool. Pretty faces are to be had cheaper than that. I hate your mawkish sentimentality, Lotte. You know as well as I do in what way husbands and wives generally live together; you know how far the warmth of conjugal affection can withstand the trial of a bad dinner, of a rainy day, or of the least privation which poverty brings with it; you know what freedom a man claims for himself, what slavery he would exact from his wife if he could! And you know also how wives generally obey. Marriage means tyranny on one side and deceit on the other. I say that a man is a fool to sacrifice his interests for such a bargain. A woman, too generally, has no other way of living.”

“But Bertie has no other way of living,” said Charlotte.

“Then, in God’s name, let him marry Mrs. Bold,” said Madeline. And so it was settled between them.

But let the gentle-hearted reader be under no apprehension whatsoever. It is not destined that Eleanor shall marry Mr. Slope or Bertie Stanhope. And here perhaps it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales. He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage. Nay, more, and worse than this, is too frequently done. Have not often the profoundest efforts of genius been used to baffle the aspirations of the reader, to raise false hopes and false fears, and to give rise to expectations which are never to be realized? Are not promises all but made of delightful horrors, in lieu of which the writer produces nothing but most commonplace realities in his final chapter? And is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance?

And what can be the worth of that solicitude which a peep into the third volume can utterly dissipate? What the value of those literary charms which are absolutely destroyed by their enjoyment? When we have once learnt what was that picture before which was hung Mrs. Ratcliffe’s solemn curtain, we feel no further interest about either the frame or the veil. They are to us merely a receptacle for old bones, an inappropriate coffin, which we would wish to have decently buried out of our sight.

And then how grievous a thing it is to have the pleasure of your novel destroyed by the ill-considered triumph of a previous reader. “Oh, you needn’t be alarmed for Augusta; of course she accepts Gustavus in the end.” “How very ill-natured you are, Susan,” says Kitty with tears in her eyes: “I don’t care a bit about it now.” Dear Kitty, if you will read my book, you may defy the ill-nature of your sister. There shall be no secret that she can tell you. Nay, take the third volume if you please—learn from the last pages all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose.

Our doctrine is that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake the Syracusan for the Ephesian; otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified.

I would not for the value of this chapter have it believed by a single reader that my Eleanor could bring herself to marry Mr. Slope, or that she should be sacrificed to a Bertie Stanhope. But among the good folk of Barchester many believed both the one and the other.

CHAPTER XVI

Baby Worship

“Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum,” said or sung Eleanor Bold.

“Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum,” continued Mary Bold, taking up the second part in this concerted piece.

The only audience at the concert was the baby, who however gave such vociferous applause that the performers, presuming it to amount to an encore, commenced again.

“Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum: hasn’t he got lovely legs?” said the rapturous mother.

“H’m ‘m ‘m ‘m ‘m,” simmered Mary, burying her lips in the little fellow’s fat neck, by way of kissing him.

“H’m ‘m ‘m ‘m ‘m,” simmered the mamma, burying her lips also in his fat, round, short legs. “He’s a dawty little bold darling, so he is; and he has the nicest little pink legs in all the world, so he has;” and the simmering and the kissing went on over again, as though the ladies were very hungry and determined to eat him.

“Well, then, he’s his own mother’s own darling: well, he shall—oh, oh—Mary, Mary—did you ever see? What am I to do? My naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty little Johnny.” All these energetic exclamations were elicited by the delight of the mother in finding that her son was strong enough and mischievous enough to pull all her hair out from under her cap. “He’s been and pulled down all Mamma’s hair, and he’s the naughtiest, naughtiest, naughtiest little man that ever, ever, ever, ever, ever—”

A regular service of baby worship was going on. Mary Bold was sitting on a low easy chair, with the boy in her lap, and Eleanor was kneeling before the object of her idolatry. As she tried to cover up the little fellow’s face with her long, glossy, dark brown locks, and permitted him to pull them hither and thither as he would, she looked very beautiful in spite of the widow’s cap which she still wore. There was a quiet, enduring, grateful sweetness about her face which grew so strongly upon those who knew her, as to make the great praise of her beauty which came from her old friends appear marvellously exaggerated to those who were only slightly acquainted with her. Her loveliness was like that of many landscapes, which require to be often seen to be fully enjoyed. There was a depth of dark clear brightness in her eyes which was lost upon a quick observer, a character about her mouth which only showed itself to those with whom she familiarly conversed, a glorious form of head the perfect symmetry of which required the eye of an artist for its appreciation. She had none of that dazzling brilliancy, of that voluptuous Rubens beauty, of that pearly whiteness, and those vermilion tints which immediately entranced with the power of a basilisk men who came within reach of Madeline Neroni. It was all but impossible to resist the signora, but no one was called upon for any resistance towards Eleanor. You might begin to talk to her as though she were your sister, and it would not be till your head was on your pillow that the truth and intensity of her beauty would flash upon you, that the sweetness of her voice would come upon your ear. A sudden half-hour with the Neroni was like falling into a pit, an evening spent with Eleanor like an unexpected ramble in some quiet fields of asphodel.

“We’ll cover him up till there shan’t be a morsel of his little ‘ittle ‘ittle ‘ittle nose to be seen,” said the mother, stretching her streaming locks over the infant’s face. The child screamed with delight, and kicked till Mary Bold was hardly able to hold him.

At this moment the door opened, and Mr. Slope was announced. Up jumped Eleanor and, with a sudden quick motion of her hands, pushed back her hair over her shoulders. It would have been perhaps better for her that she had not, for she thus showed more of her confusion than she would have done had she remained as she was. Mr. Slope, however, immediately recognized her loveliness and thought to himself that, irrespective of her fortune, she would be an inmate that a man might well desire for his house, a partner for his bosom’s care very well qualified to make care lie easy. Eleanor hurried out of the room to readjust her cap, muttering some unnecessary apology about her baby. And while she is gone, we will briefly go back and state what had been hitherto the results of Mr. Slope’s meditations on his scheme of matrimony.

His inquiries as to the widow’s income had at any rate been so far successful as to induce him to determine to go on with the speculation. As regarded Mr. Harding, he had also resolved to do what he could without injury to himself. To Mrs. Proudie he determined not to speak on the matter, at least not at present. His object was to instigate a little rebellion on the part of the bishop. He thought that such a state of things would be advisable, not only in respect to Messrs. Harding and Quiverful, but also in the affairs of the diocese generally. Mr. Slope was by no means of opinion that Dr. Proudie was fit to rule, but he conscientiously thought it wrong that his brother clergy should be subjected to petticoat government. He therefore made up his mind to infuse a little of his spirit into the bishop, sufficient to induce him to oppose his wife, though not enough to make him altogether insubordinate.

He had therefore taken an opportunity of again speaking to his lordship about the hospital, and had endeavoured to make it appear that after all it would be unwise to exclude Mr. Harding from the appointment. Mr. Slope, however, had a harder task than he had imagined. Mrs. Proudie, anxious to assume to herself as much as possible of the merit of patronage, had written to Mrs. Quiverful, requesting her to call at the palace, and had then explained to that matron, with much mystery, condescension, and dignity, the good that was in store for her and her progeny. Indeed, Mrs. Proudie had been so engaged at the very time that Mr. Slope had been doing the same with the husband at Puddingdale Vicarage, and had thus in a measure committed herself. The thanks, the humility, the gratitude, the surprise of Mrs. Quiverful had been very overpowering; she had all but embraced the knees of her patroness, and had promised that the prayers of fourteen unprovided babes (so Mrs. Quiverful had described her own family, the eldest of which was a stout young woman of three-and-twenty) should be put up to heaven morning and evening for the munificent friend whom God had sent to them. Such incense as this was not unpleasing to Mrs. Proudie, and she made the most of it. She offered her general assistance to the fourteen unprovided babes, if, as she had no doubt, she should find them worthy; expressed a hope that the eldest of them would be fit to undertake tuition in her Sabbath-schools; and altogether made herself a very great lady in the estimation of Mrs. Quiverful.

Having done this, she thought it prudent to drop a few words before the bishop, letting him know that she had acquainted the Puddingdale family with their good fortune; so that he might perceive that he stood committed to the appointment. The husband well understood the ruse of his wife, but he did not resent it. He knew that she was taking the patronage out of his hands; he was resolved to put an end to her interference and reassume his powers. But then he thought this was not the best time to do it. He put off the evil hour, as many a man in similar circumstances has done before him.

Such having been the case, Mr. Slope naturally encountered a difficulty in talking over the bishop, a difficulty indeed which he found could not be overcome except at the cost of a general outbreak at the palace. A general outbreak at the present moment might be good policy, but it also might not. It was at any rate not a step to be lightly taken. He began by whispering to the bishop that he feared that public opinion would be against him if Mr. Harding did not reappear at the hospital. The bishop answered with some warmth that Mr. Quiverful had been promised the appointment on Mr. Slope’s advice. “Not promised?” said Mr. Slope. “Yes, promised,” replied the bishop, “and Mrs. Proudie has seen Mrs. Quiverful on the subject.” This was quite unexpected on the part of Mr. Slope, but his presence of mind did not fail him, and he turned the statement to his own account.

“Ah, my lord,” said he, “we shall all be in scrapes if the ladies interfere.”

This was too much in unison with my lord’s feelings to be altogether unpalatable, and yet such an allusion to interference demanded a rebuke. My lord was somewhat astounded also, though not altogether made miserable, by finding that there was a point of difference between his wife and his chaplain.

“I don’t know what you mean by interference,” said the bishop mildly. “When Mrs. Proudie heard that Mr. Quiverful was to be appointed, it was not unnatural that she should wish to see Mrs. Quiverful about the schools. I really cannot say that I see any interference.”

“I only speak, my lord, for your own comfort,” said Slope; “for your own comfort and dignity in the diocese. I can have no other motive. As far as personal feelings go, Mrs. Proudie is the best friend I have. I must always remember that. But still, in my present position, my first duty is to your lordship.”

“I’m sure of that, Mr. Slope; I am quite sure of that;” said the bishop, mollified: “and you really think that Mr. Harding should have the hospital?”

“Upon my word, I’m inclined to think so. I am quite prepared to take upon myself the blame of first suggesting Mr. Quiverful’s name. But since doing so, I have found that there is so strong a feeling in the diocese in favour of Mr. Harding that I think your lordship should give way. I hear also that Mr. Harding has modified the objections he first felt to your lordship’s propositions. And as to what has passed between Mrs. Proudie and Mrs. Quiverful, the circumstance may be a little inconvenient, but I really do not think that that should weigh in a matter of so much moment.”

And thus the poor bishop was left in a dreadfully undecided step as to what he should do. His mind, however, slightly inclined itself to the appointment of Mr. Harding, seeing that by such a step he should have the assistance of Mr. Slope in opposing Mrs. Proudie.

Such was the state of affairs at the palace, when Mr. Slope called at Mrs. Bold’s house and found her playing with her baby. When she ran out of the room, Mr. Slope began praising the weather to Mary Bold, then he praised the baby and kissed him, and then he praised the mother, and then he praised Miss Bold herself. Mrs. Bold, however, was not long before she came back.

“I have to apologize for calling at so very early an hour,” began Mr. Slope, “but I was really so anxious to speak to you that I hope you and Miss Bold will excuse me.”

Eleanor muttered something in which the words “certainly,” and “of course,” and “not early at all,” were just audible, and then apologized for her own appearance, declaring, with a smile, that her baby was becoming such a big boy that he was quite unmanageable.

“He’s a great big naughty boy,” said she to the child, “and we must send him away to a great big rough romping school, where they have great big rods and do terrible things to naughty boys who don’t do what their own mammas tell them;” and she then commenced another course of kissing, being actuated thereto by the terrible idea of sending her child away which her own imagination had depicted.

“And where the masters don’t have such beautiful long hair to be dishevelled,” said Mr. Slope, taking up the joke and paying a compliment at the same time.

Eleanor thought he might as well have left the compliment alone, but she said nothing and looked nothing, being occupied as she was with the baby.

“Let me take him,” said Mary. “His clothes are nearly off his back with his romping,” and so saying she left the room with the child. Miss Bold had heard Mr. Slope say he had something pressing to say to Eleanor, and thinking that she might be de trop, took this opportunity of getting herself out of the room.

“Don’t be long, Mary,” said Eleanor as Miss Bold shut the door.

“I am glad, Mrs. Bold, to have the opportunity of having ten minutes’ conversation with you alone,” began Mr. Slope. “Will you let me openly ask you a plain question?”

“Certainly,” said she.

“And I am sure you will give me a plain and open answer.”

“Either that, or none at all,” said she, laughing.

“My question is this, Mrs. Bold: is your father really anxious to go back to the hospital?”

“Why do you ask me?” said she. “Why don’t you ask himself?”

“My dear Mrs. Bold, I’ll tell you why. There are wheels within wheels, all of which I would explain to you, only I fear that there is not time. It is essentially necessary that I should have an answer to this question, otherwise I cannot know how to advance your father’s wishes; and it is quite impossible that I should ask himself. No one can esteem your father more than I do, but I doubt if this feeling is reciprocal.” It certainly was not. “I must be candid with you as the only means of avoiding ultimate consequences, which may be most injurious to Mr. Harding. I fear there is a feeling—I will not even call it a prejudice—with regard to myself in Barchester, which is not in my favour. You remember that sermon—”

“Oh, Mr. Slope, we need not go back to that,” said Eleanor.

“For one moment, Mrs. Bold. It is not that I may talk of myself, but because it is so essential that you should understand how matters stand. That sermon may have been ill-judged—it was certainly misunderstood; but I will say nothing about that now; only this, that it did give rise to a feeling against myself which your father shares with others. It may be that he has proper cause, but the result is that he is not inclined to meet me on friendly terms. I put it to yourself whether you do not know this to be the case.”

Eleanor made no answer, and Mr. Slope, in the eagerness of his address, edged his chair a little nearer to the widow’s seat, unperceived by her.

“Such being so,” continued Mr. Slope, “I cannot ask him this question as I can ask it of you. In spite of my delinquencies since I came to Barchester you have allowed me to regard you as a friend.” Eleanor made a little motion with her head which was hardly confirmatory, but Mr. Slope if he noticed it, did not appear to do so. “To you I can speak openly and explain the feelings of my heart. This your father would not allow. Unfortunately, the bishop has thought it right that this matter of the hospital should pass through my hands. There have been some details to get up with which he would not trouble himself, and thus it has come to pass that I was forced to have an interview with your father on the matter.”

“I am aware of that,” said Eleanor.

“Of course,” said he. “In that interview Mr. Harding left the impression on my mind that he did not wish to return to the hospital.”

“How could that be?” said Eleanor, at last stirred up to forget the cold propriety of demeanour which she had determined to maintain.

“My dear Mrs. Bold, I give you my word that such was the case,” said he, again getting a little nearer to her. “And what is more than that, before my interview with Mr. Harding, certain persons at the palace—I do not mean the bishop—had told me that such was the fact. I own, I hardly believed it; I own, I thought that your father would wish on every account, for conscience’ sake, for the sake of those old men, for old association and the memory of dear days long gone by, on every account I thought that he would wish to resume his duties. But I was told that such was not his wish, and he certainly left me with the impression that I had been told the truth.”

“Well!” said Eleanor, now sufficiently roused on the matter.

“I hear Miss Bold’s step,” said Mr. Slope; “would it be asking too great a favour to beg you to—I know you can manage anything with Miss Bold.”

Eleanor did not like the word manage, but still she went out and asked Mary to leave them alone for another quarter of an hour.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bold—I am so very grateful for this confidence. Well, I left your father with this impression. Indeed, I may say that he made me understand that he declined the appointment.”

“Not the appointment,” said Eleanor. “I am sure he did not decline the appointment. But he said that he would not agree—that is, that he did not like the scheme about the schools and the services and all that. I am quite sure he never said that he wished to refuse the place.”

“Oh, Mrs. Bold!” said Mr. Slope in a manner almost impassioned. “I would not for the world say to so good a daughter a word against so good a father. But you must, for his sake, let me show you exactly how the matter stands at present. Mr. Harding was a little flurried when I told him of the bishop’s wishes about the school. I did so perhaps with the less caution because you yourself had so perfectly agreed with me on the same subject. He was a little put out and spoke warmly. ‘Tell the bishop,’ said he, ‘that I quite disagree with him—and shall not return to the hospital as such conditions are attached to it.’ What he said was to that effect; indeed, his words were, if anything, stronger than those. I had no alternative but to repeat them to his lordship, who said that he could look on them in no other light than a refusal. He also had heard the report that your father did not wish for the appointment, and putting all these things together, he thought he had no choice but to look for someone else. He has consequently offered the place to Mr. Quiverful.”

“Offered the place to Mr. Quiverful!” repeated Eleanor, her eyes suffused with tears. “Then, Mr. Slope, there is an end of it.”

“No, my friend—not so,” said he. “It is to prevent such being the end of it that I am now here. I may at any rate presume that I have got an answer to my question, and that Mr. Harding is desirous of returning.”

“Desirous of returning—of course he is,” said Eleanor; “of course he wishes to have back his house and his income and his place in the world; to have back what he gave up with such self-denying honesty, if he can have them without restraints on his conduct to which at his age it would be impossible that he should submit. How can the bishop ask a man of his age to turn schoolmaster to a pack of children?”

“Out of the question,” said Mr. Slope, laughing slightly; “of course no such demand shall be made on your father. I can at any rate promise you that I will not be the medium of any so absurd a requisition. We wished your father to preach in the hospital, as the inmates may naturally be too old to leave it, but even that shall not be insisted on. We wished also to attach a Sabbath-day school to the hospital, thinking that such an establishment could not but be useful under the surveillance of so good a clergyman as Mr. Harding, and also under your own. But, dear Mrs. Bold, we won’t talk of these things now. One thing is clear: we must do what we can to annul this rash offer the bishop has made to Mr. Quiverful. Your father wouldn’t see Quiverful, would he? Quiverful is an honourable man, and would not for a moment stand in your father’s way.”

“What?” said Eleanor. “Ask a man with fourteen children to give up his preferment! I am quite sure he will do no such thing.”

“I suppose not,” said Slope, and he again drew near to Mrs. Bold, so that now they were very close to each other. Eleanor did not think much about it but instinctively moved away a little. How greatly would she have increased the distance could she have guessed what had been said about her at Plumstead! “I suppose not. But it is out of the question that Quiverful should supersede your father—quite out of the question. The bishop has been too rash. An idea occurs to me which may perhaps, with God’s blessing, put us right. My dear Mrs. Bold, would you object to seeing the bishop yourself?”

“Why should not my father see him?” said Eleanor. She had once before in her life interfered in her father’s affairs, and then not to much advantage. She was older now and felt that she should take no step in a matter so vital to him without his consent.

“Why, to tell the truth,” said Mr. Slope with a look of sorrow, as though he greatly bewailed the want of charity in his patron, “the bishop fancies that he has cause of anger against your father. I fear an interview would lead to further ill-will.”

“Why,” said Eleanor, “my father is the mildest, the gentlest man living.”

“I only know,” said Slope, “that he has the best of daughters. So you would not see the bishop? As to getting an interview, I could manage that for you without the slightest annoyance to yourself.”

“I could do nothing, Mr. Slope, without consulting my father.”

“Ah!” said he, “that would be useless; you would then only be your father’s messenger. Does anything occur to yourself? Something must be done. Your father shall not be ruined by so ridiculous a misunderstanding.”

Eleanor said that nothing occurred to her, but that it was very hard; the tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Mr. Slope would have given much to have had the privilege of drying them, but he had tact enough to know that he had still a great deal to do before he could even hope for any privilege with Mrs. Bold.

“It cuts me to the heart to see you so grieved,” said he. “But pray let me assure you that your father’s interests shall not be sacrificed if it be possible for me to protect them. I will tell the bishop openly what are the facts. I will explain to him that he has hardly the right to appoint any other than your father, and will show him that if he does so he will be guilty of great injustice—and you, Mrs. Bold, you will have the charity at any rate to believe this of me, that I am truly anxious for your father’s welfare—for his and for your own.”

The widow hardly knew what answer to make. She was quite aware that her father would not be at all thankful to Mr. Slope; she had a strong wish to share her father’s feelings; and yet she could not but acknowledge that Mr. Slope was very kind. Her father, who was generally so charitable to all men, who seldom spoke ill of anyone, had warned her against Mr. Slope, and yet she did not know how to abstain from thanking him. What interest could he have in the matter but that which he professed? Nevertheless there was that in his manner which even she distrusted. She felt, she did not know why, that there was something about him which ought to put her on her guard.

Mr. Slope read all this in her hesitating manner just as plainly as though she had opened her heart to him. It was the talent of the man that he could so read the inward feelings of women with whom he conversed. He knew that Eleanor was doubting him, and that, if she thanked him, she would only do so because she could not help it, but yet this did not make him angry or even annoy him. Rome was not built in a day.

“I did not come for thanks,” continued he, seeing her hesitation, “and do not want them—at any rate before they are merited. But this I do want, Mrs. Bold, that I may make to myself friends in this fold to which it has pleased God to call me as one of the humblest of his shepherds. If I cannot do so, my task here must indeed be a sad one. I will at any rate endeavour to deserve them.”

“I’m sure,” said she, “you will soon make plenty of friends.” She felt herself obliged to say something.

“That will be nothing unless they are such as will sympathize with my feelings; unless they are such as I can reverence and admire—and love. If the best and purest turn away from me, I cannot bring myself to be satisfied with the friendship of the less estimable. In such case I must live alone.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will not do that, Mr. Slope.” Eleanor meant nothing, but it suited him to appear to think some special allusion had been intended.

“Indeed, Mrs. Bold, I shall live alone, quite alone as far as the heart is concerned, if those with whom I yearn to ally myself turn away from me. But enough of this; I have called you my friend, and I hope you will not contradict me. I trust the time may come when I may also call your father so. May God bless you, Mrs. Bold, you and your darling boy. And tell your father from me that what can be done for his interest shall be done.”

And so he took his leave, pressing the widow’s hand rather more closely than usual. Circumstances, however, seemed just then to make this intelligible, and the lady did not feel called on to resent it.

“I cannot understand him,” said Eleanor to Mary Bold a few minutes afterwards. “I do not know whether he is a good man or a bad man—whether he is true or false.”

“Then give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Mary, “and believe the best.”

“On the whole, I think I do,” said Eleanor. “I think I do believe that he means well—and if so, it is a shame that we should revile him and make him miserable while he is among us. But, oh, Mary, I fear Papa will be disappointed in the hospital.”

CHAPTER XVII

Who Shall Be Cock of the Walk?

All this time things were going somewhat uneasily at the palace. The hint or two which Mr. Slope had given was by no means thrown away upon the bishop. He had a feeling that if he ever meant to oppose the now almost unendurable despotism of his wife, he must lose no further time in doing so; that if he ever meant to be himself master in his own diocese, let alone his own house, he should begin at once. It would have been easier to have done so from the day of his consecration than now, but easier now than when Mrs. Proudie should have succeeded in thoroughly mastering the diocesan details. Then the proffered assistance of Mr. Slope was a great thing for him, a most unexpected and invaluable aid. Hitherto he had looked on the two as allied forces and had considered that, as allies, they were impregnable. He had begun to believe that his only chance of escape would be by the advancement of Mr. Slope to some distant and rich preferment. But now it seemed that one of his enemies, certainly the least potent of them, but nevertheless one very important, was willing to desert his own camp. Assisted by Mr. Slope what might he not do? He walked up and down his little study, almost thinking that the time might come when he would be able to appropriate to his own use the big room upstairs in which his predecessor had always sat.

As he revolved these things in his mind a note was brought to him from Archdeacon Grantly, in which that divine begged his lordship to do him the honour of seeing him on the morrow—would his lordship have the kindness to name an hour? Dr. Grantly’s proposed visit would have reference to the reappointment of Mr. Harding to the wardenship of Barchester Hospital. The bishop having read his note was informed that the archdeacon’s servant was waiting for an answer.

Here at once a great opportunity offered itself to the bishop of acting on his own responsibility. He bethought himself however of his new ally and rang the bell for Mr. Slope. It turned out that Mr. Slope was not in the house, and then, greatly daring, the bishop with his own unassisted spirit wrote a note to the archdeacon saving that he would see him, and naming an hour for doing so. Having watched from his study-window that the messenger got safely off from the premises with this dispatch, he began to turn over in his mind what step he should next take.

To-morrow he would have to declare to the archdeacon either that Mr. Harding should have the appointment, or that he should not have it. The bishop felt that he could not honestly throw over the Quiverfuls without informing Mrs. Proudie, and he resolved at last to brave the lioness in her den and tell her that circumstances were such that it behoved him to reappoint Mr. Harding. He did not feel that he should at all derogate from his new courage by promising Mrs. Proudie that the very first piece of available preferment at his disposal should be given to Quiverful to atone for the injury done to him. If he could mollify the lioness with such a sop, how happy would he think his first efforts to have been!

Not without many misgivings did he find himself in Mrs. Proudie’s boudoir. He had at first thought of sending for her. But it was not at all impossible that she might choose to take such a message amiss, and then also it might be some protection to him to have his daughters present at the interview. He found her sitting with her account-books before her, nibbling the end of her pencil, evidently immersed in pecuniary difficulties, and harassed in mind by the multiplicity of palatial expenses and the heavy cost of episcopal grandeur. Her daughters were around her. Olivia was reading a novel, Augusta was crossing a note to her bosom friend in Baker Street, and Netta was working diminutive coach wheels for the bottom of a petticoat. If the bishop could get the better of his wife in her present mood, he would be a man indeed. He might then consider the victory his own forever. After all, in such cases the matter between husband and wife stands much the same as it does between two boys at the same school, two cocks in the same yard, or two armies on the same continent. The conqueror once is generally the conqueror forever after. The prestige of victory is everything.

“Ahem—my dear,” began the bishop, “if you are disengaged, I wished to speak to you.” Mrs. Proudie put her pencil down carefully at the point to which she had totted her figures, marked down in her memory the sum she had arrived at, and then looked up, sourly enough, into her helpmate’s face. “If you are busy, another time will do as well,” continued the bishop, whose courage, like Bob Acres’, had oozed out now that he found himself on the ground of battle.

“What is it about, Bishop?” asked the lady.

“Well—it was about those Quiverfuls—but I see you are engaged. Another time will do just as well for me.”

“What about the Quiverfuls? It is quite understood, I believe, that they are to come to the hospital. There is to be no doubt about that, is there?” and as she spoke she kept her pencil sternly and vigorously fixed on the column of figures before her.

“Why, my dear, there is a difficulty,” said the bishop.

“A difficulty!” said Mrs. Proudie, “what difficulty? The place has been promised to Mr. Quiverful, and of course he must have it. He has made all his arrangements. He has written for a curate for Puddingdale, he has spoken to the auctioneer about selling his farm, horses, and cows, and in all respects considers the place as his own. Of course he must have it.”

Now, Bishop, look well to thyself and call up all the manhood that is in thee. Think how much is at stake. If now thou art not true to thy guns, no Slope can hereafter aid thee. How can he who deserts his own colours at the first smell of gunpowder expect faith in any ally? Thou thyself hast sought the battlefield: fight out the battle manfully now thou art there. Courage, Bishop, courage! Frowns cannot kill, nor can sharp words break any bones. After all, the apron is thine own. She can appoint no wardens, give away no benefices, nominate no chaplains, an’ thou art but true to thyself. Up, man, and at her with a constant heart.

Some little monitor within the bishop’s breast so addressed him. But then there was another monitor there which advised him differently, and as follows. Remember, Bishop, she is a woman, and such a woman too as thou well knowest: a battle of words with such a woman is the very mischief. Were it not better for thee to carry on this war, if it must be waged, from behind thine own table in thine own study? Does not every cock fight best on his own dunghill? Thy daughters also are here, the pledges of thy love, the fruits of thy loins: is it well that they should see thee in the hour of thy victory over their mother? Nay, is it well that they should see thee in the possible hour of thy defeat? Besides, hast thou not chosen thy opportunity with wonderful little skill, indeed with no touch of that sagacity for which thou art famous? Will it not turn out that thou art wrong in this matter and thine enemy right; that thou hast actually pledged thyself in this matter of the hospital, and that now thou wouldest turn upon thy wife because she requires from thee but the fulfilment of thy promise? Art thou not a Christian bishop, and is not thy word to be held sacred whatever be the result? Return, Bishop, to thy sanctum on the lower floor and postpone thy combative propensities for some occasion in which at least thou mayest fight the battle against odds less tremendously against thee.

All this passed within the bishop’s bosom while Mrs. Proudie still sat with her fixed pencil, and the figures of her sum still enduring on the tablets of her memory. “Ł4 17s. 7d.” she said to herself. “Of course Mr. Quiverful must have the hospital,” she said out loud to her lord.

“Well, my dear, I merely wanted to suggest to you that Mr. Slope seems to think that if Mr. Harding be not appointed, public feeling in the matter would be against us, and that the press might perhaps take it up.”

“Mr. Slope seems to think!” said Mrs. Proudie in a tone of voice which plainly showed the bishop that he was right in looking for a breach in that quarter. “And what has Mr. Slope to do with it? I hope, my lord, you are not going to allow yourself to be governed by a chaplain.” And now in her eagerness the lady lost her place in her account.

“Certainly not, my dear. Nothing I can assure you is less probable. But still, Mr. Slope may be useful in finding how the wind blows, and I really thought that if we could give something else as good to the Quiverfuls—”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Proudie; “it would be years before you could give them anything else that could suit them half as well, and as for the press and the public and all that, remember there are two ways of telling a story. If Mr. Harding is fool enough to tell his tale, we can also tell ours. The place was offered to him, and he refused it. It has now been given to someone else, and there’s an end of it. At least I should think so.”

“Well, my dear, I rather believe you are right,” said the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went downstairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present, and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to bilious annoyances.

“Mr. Slope, indeed! I’ll Slope him,” said the indignant matron to her listening progeny. “I don’t know what has come to Mr. Slope. I believe he thinks he is to be Bishop of Barchester himself, because I’ve taken him by the hand and got your father to make him his domestic chaplain.”

“He was always full of impudence,” said Olivia; “I told you so once before, Mamma.” Olivia, however, had not thought him too impudent when once before he had proposed to make her Mrs. Slope.

“Well, Olivia, I always thought you liked him,” said Augusta, who at that moment had some grudge against her sister. “I always disliked the man, because I think him thoroughly vulgar.”

“There you’re wrong,” said Mrs. Proudie; “he’s not vulgar at all; and what is more, he is a soul-stirring, eloquent preacher; but he must be taught to know his place if he is to remain in this house.”

“He has the horridest eyes I ever saw in a man’s head,” said Netta; “and I tell you what, he’s terribly greedy; did you see all the currant pie he ate yesterday?”

When Mr. Slope got home he soon learnt from the bishop, as much from his manner as his words, that Mrs. Proudie’s behests in the matter of the hospital were to be obeyed. Dr. Proudie let fall something as to “this occasion only” and “keeping all affairs about patronage exclusively in his own hands.” But he was quite decided about Mr. Harding; and as Mr. Slope did not wish to have both the prelate and the prelatess against him, he did not at present see that he could do anything but yield.

He merely remarked that he would of course carry out the bishop’s views and that he was quite sure that if the bishop trusted to his own judgement things in the diocese would certainly be well ordered. Mr. Slope knew that if you hit a nail on the head often enough, it will penetrate at last.

He was sitting alone in his room on the same evening when a light knock was made on his door, and before he could answer it the door was opened, and his patroness appeared. He was all smiles in a moment, but so was not she also. She took, however, the chair that was offered to her, and thus began her expostulation:

“Mr. Slope, I did not at all approve your conduct the other night with that Italian woman. Anyone would have thought that you were her lover.”

“Good gracious, my dear madam,” said Mr. Slope with a look of horror. “Why, she is a married woman.”

“That’s more than I know,” said Mrs. Proudie; “however she chooses to pass for such. But married or not married, such attention as you paid to her was improper. I cannot believe that you would wish to give offence in my drawing-room, Mr. Slope, but I owe it to myself and my daughters to tell you that I disapprove of your conduct.”

Mr. Slope opened wide his huge protruding eyes and stared out of them with a look of well-feigned surprise. “Why, Mrs. Proudie,” said he, “I did but fetch her something to eat when she said she was hungry.”

“And you have called on her since,” continued she, looking at the culprit with the stern look of a detective policeman in the act of declaring himself.

Mr. Slope turned over in his mind whether it would be well for him to tell this termagant at once that he should call on whom he liked and do what he liked, but he remembered that his footing in Barchester was not yet sufficiently firm, and that it would be better for him to pacify her.

“I certainly called since at Dr. Stanhope’s house, and certainly saw Madame Neroni.”

“Yes, and you saw her alone,” said the episcopal Argus.

“Undoubtedly, I did,” said Mr. Slope, “but that was because nobody else happened to be in the room. Surely it was no fault of mine if the rest of the family were out.”

“Perhaps not, but I assure you, Mr. Slope, you will fall greatly in my estimation if I find that you allow yourself to be caught by the lures of that woman. I know women better than you do, Mr. Slope, and you may believe me that that signora, as she calls herself, is not a fitting companion for a strict evangelical unmarried young clergyman.”

How Mr. Slope would have liked to laugh at her, had he dared! But he did not dare. So he merely said, “I can assure you, Mrs. Proudie, the lady in question is nothing to me.”

“Well, I hope not, Mr. Slope. But I have considered it my duty to give you this caution. And now there is another thing I feel myself called on to speak about: it is your conduct to the bishop, Mr. Slope.”

“My conduct to the bishop,” said he, now truly surprised and ignorant what the lady alluded to.

“Yes, Mr. Slope, your conduct to the bishop. It is by no means what I would wish to see it.”

“Has the bishop said anything, Mrs. Proudie?”

“No, the bishop has said nothing. He probably thinks that any remarks on the matter will come better from me, who first introduced you to his lordship’s notice. The fact is, Mr. Slope, you are a little inclined to take too much upon yourself.”

An angry spot showed itself on Mr. Slope’s cheeks, and it was with difficulty that he controlled himself. But he did do so, and sat quite silent while the lady went on.

“It is the fault of many young men in your position, and therefore the bishop is not inclined at present to resent it. You will, no doubt, soon learn what is required from you and what is not. If you will take my advice, however, you will be careful not to obtrude advice upon the bishop in any matter touching patronage. If his lordship wants advice, he knows where to look for it.” And then having added to her counsel a string of platitudes as to what was desirable and what not desirable in the conduct of a strictly evangelical unmarried young clergyman, Mrs. Proudie retreated, leaving the chaplain to his thoughts.

The upshot of his thoughts was this, that there certainly was not room in the diocese for the energies of both himself and Mrs. Proudie, and that it behoved him quickly to ascertain whether his energies or hers were to prevail.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Widow’s Persecution

Early on the following morning Mr. Slope was summoned to the bishop’s dressing-room, and went there fully expecting that he should find his lordship very indignant and spirited up by his wife to repeat the rebuke which she had administered on the previous day. Mr. Slope had resolved that at any rate from him he would not stand it, and entered the dressing-room in rather a combative disposition; but he found the bishop in the most placid and gentlest of humours. His lordship complained of being rather unwell, had a slight headache, and was not quite the thing in his stomach; but there was nothing the matter with his temper.

“Oh, Slope,” said he, taking the chaplain’s proffered hand, “Archdeacon Grantly is to call on me this morning, and I really am not fit to see him. I fear I must trouble you to see him for me;” and then Dr. Proudie proceeded to explain what it was that must be said to Dr. Grantly. He was to be told in fact, in the civilest words in which the tidings could be conveyed, that Mr. Harding having refused the wardenship, the appointment had been offered to Mr. Quiverful and accepted by him.

Mr. Slope again pointed out to his patron that he thought he was perhaps not quite wise in his decision, and this he did sotto voce. But even with this precaution it was not safe to say much, and during the little that he did say, the bishop made a very slight, but still a very ominous gesture with his thumb towards the door which opened from his dressing-room to some inner sanctuary. Mr. Slope at once took the hint and said no more, but he perceived that there was to be confidence between him and his patron, that the league desired by him was to be made, and that this appointment of Mr. Quiverful was to be the last sacrifice offered on the altar of conjugal obedience. All this Mr. Slope read in the slight motion of the bishop’s thumb, and he read it correctly. There was no need of parchments and seals, of attestations, explanations, and professions. The bargain was understood between them, and Mr. Slope gave the bishop his hand upon it. The bishop understood the little extra squeeze, and an intelligible gleam of assent twinkled in his eye.

“Pray be civil to the archdeacon, Mr. Slope,” said he out loud, “but make him quite understand that in this matter Mr. Harding has put it out of my power to oblige him.”

It would be a calumny on Mrs. Proudie to suggest that she was sitting in her bedroom with her ear at the keyhole during this interview. She had within her a spirit of decorum which prevented her from descending to such baseness. To put her ear to a keyhole, or to listen at a chink, was a trick for a housemaid. Mrs. Proudie knew this, and therefore did not do it; but she stationed herself as near to the door as she well could, that she might, if possible, get the advantage which the housemaid would have had, without descending to the housemaid’s artifice.

It was little, however, that she heard, and that little was only sufficient to deceive her. She saw nothing of that friendly pressure, perceived nothing of that concluded bargain; she did not even dream of the treacherous resolves which those two false men had made together to upset her in the pride of her station, to dash the cup from her lip before she had drunk of it, to sweep away all her power before she had tasted its sweets! Traitors that they were, the husband of her bosom and the outcast whom she had fostered and brought to the warmth of the world’s brightest fireside! But neither of them had the magnanimity of this woman. Though two men have thus leagued themselves together against her, even yet the battle is not lost.

Mr. Slope felt pretty sure that Dr. Grantly would decline the honour of seeing him, and such turned out to be the case. The archdeacon, when the palace door was opened to him, was greeted by a note. Mr. Slope presented his compliments, &c. &c. The bishop was ill in his room and very greatly regretted, &c. &c. Mr. Slope had been charged with the bishop’s views, and if agreeable to the archdeacon, would do himself the honour, &c. &c. The archdeacon, however, was not agreeable, and having read his note in the hall, crumpled it up in his hand, and muttering something about sorrow for his lordship’s illness, took his leave, without sending as much as a verbal message in answer to Mr. Slope’s note.

“Ill!” said the archdeacon to himself as he flung himself into his brougham. “The man is absolutely a coward. He is afraid to see me. Ill, indeed!” The archdeacon was never ill himself, and did not therefore understand that anyone else could in truth be prevented by illness from keeping an appointment. He regarded all such excuses as subterfuges, and in the present instance he was not far wrong.

Dr. Grantly desired to be driven to his father-in-law’s lodgings in the High Street, and hearing from the servant that Mr. Harding was at his daughter’s, followed him to Mrs. Bold’s house, and there found him. The archdeacon was fuming with rage when he got into the drawing-room, and had by this time nearly forgotten the pusillanimity of the bishop in the villainy of the chaplain.

“Look at that,” said he, throwing Mr. Slope’s crumpled note to Mr. Harding. “I am to be told that if I choose I may have the honour of seeing Mr. Slope, and that too after a positive engagement with the bishop.”

“But he says the bishop is ill,” said Mr. Harding.

“Pshaw! You don’t mean to say that you are deceived by such an excuse as that. He was well enough yesterday. Now I tell you what, I will see the bishop, and I will tell him also very plainly what I think of his conduct. I will see him, or else Barchester will soon be too hot to hold him.”

Eleanor was sitting in the room, but Dr. Grantly had hardly noticed her in his anger. Eleanor now said to him with the greatest innocence, “I wish you had seen Mr. Slope, Dr. Grantly, because I think perhaps it might have done good.”

The archdeacon turned on her with almost brutal wrath. Had she at once owned that she had accepted Mr. Slope for her second husband, he could hardly have felt more convinced of her belonging body and soul to the Slope and Proudie party than he now did on hearing her express such a wish as this. Poor Eleanor!

“See him!” said the archdeacon glaring at her. “And why am I to be called on to lower myself in the world’s esteem and my own by coming in contact with such a man as that? I have hitherto lived among gentlemen, and do not mean to be dragged into other company by anybody.”

Poor Mr. Harding well knew what the archdeacon meant, but Eleanor was as innocent as her own baby. She could not understand how the archdeacon could consider himself to be dragged into bad company by condescending to speak to Mr. Slope for a few minutes when the interests of her father might be served by his doing so.

“I was talking for a full hour yesterday to Mr. Slope,” said she with some little assumption of dignity, “and I did not find myself lowered by it.”

“Perhaps not,” said he. “But if you’ll be good enough to allow me, I shall judge for myself in such matters. And I tell you what, Eleanor; it will be much better for you if you will allow yourself to be guided also by the advice of those who are your friends. If you do not, you will be apt to find that you have no friends left who can advise you.”

Eleanor blushed up to the roots of her hair. But even now she had not the slightest idea of what was passing in the archdeacon’s mind. No thought of love-making or love-receiving had yet found its way to her heart since the death of poor John Bold, and if it were possible that such a thought should spring there, the man must be far different from Mr. Slope that could give it birth.

Nevertheless Eleanor blushed deeply, for she felt she was charged with improper conduct, and she did so with the more inward pain because her father did not instantly rally to her side—that father for whose sake and love she had submitted to be the receptacle of Mr. Slope’s confidence. She had given a detailed account of all that had passed to her father, and though he had not absolutely agreed with her about Mr. Slope’s views touching the hospital, yet he had said nothing to make her think that she had been wrong in talking to him.

She was far too angry to humble herself before her brother-in-law. Indeed, she had never accustomed herself to be very abject before him, and they had never been confidential allies. “I do not the least understand what you mean, Dr. Grantly,” said she. “I do not know that I can accuse myself of doing anything that my friends should disapprove. Mr. Slope called here expressly to ask what Papa’s wishes were about the hospital, and as I believe he called with friendly intentions, I told him.”

“Friendly intentions!” sneered the archdeacon.

“I believe you greatly wrong Mr. Slope,” continued Eleanor, “but I have explained this to Papa already; and as you do not seem to approve of what I say, Dr. Grantly, I will with your permission leave you and Papa together;” so saying, she walked slowly out of the room.

All this made Mr. Harding very unhappy. It was quite clear that the archdeacon and his wife had made up their minds that Eleanor was going to marry Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding could not really bring himself to think that she would do so, but yet he could not deny that circumstances made it appear that the man’s company was not disagreeable to her. She was now constantly seeing him, and yet she received visits from no other unmarried gentleman. She always took his part when his conduct was canvassed, although she was aware how personally objectionable he was to her friends. Then, again, Mr. Harding felt that if she should choose to become Mrs. Slope, he had nothing that he could justly urge against her doing so. She had full right to please herself, and he, as a father, could not say that she would disgrace herself by marrying a clergyman who stood so well before the world as Mr. Slope did. As for quarrelling with his daughter on account of such a marriage, and separating himself from her as the archdeacon had threatened to do, that, with Mr. Harding, would be out of the question. If she should determine to marry this man, he must get over his aversion as best he could. His Eleanor, his own old companion in their old happy home, must still be the friend of his bosom, the child of his heart. Let who would cast her off, he would not. If it were fated that he should have to sit in his old age at the same table with that man whom of all men he disliked the most, he would meet his fate as best he might. Anything to him would be preferable to the loss of his daughter.

Such being his feelings, he hardly knew how to take part with Eleanor against the archdeacon, or with the archdeacon against Eleanor. It will be said that he should never have suspected her.—Alas! he never should have done so. But Mr. Harding was by no means a perfect character. In his indecision, his weakness, his proneness to be led by others, his want of self-confidence, he was very far from being perfect. And then it must be remembered that such a marriage as that which the archdeacon contemplated with disgust, which we who know Mr. Slope so well would regard with equal disgust, did not appear so monstrous to Mr. Harding because in his charity he did not hate the chaplain as the archdeacon did, and as we do.

He was, however, very unhappy when his daughter left the room, and he had recourse to an old trick of his that was customary to him in his times of sadness. He began playing some slow tune upon an imaginary violoncello, drawing one hand slowly backwards and forwards as though he held a bow in it, and modulating the unreal chords with the other.

“She’ll marry that man as sure as two and two make four,” said the practical archdeacon.

“I hope not, I hope not,” said the father. “But if she does, what can I say to her? I have no right to object to him.”

“No right!” exclaimed Dr. Grantly.

“No right as her father. He is in my own profession and, for aught we know, a good man.”

To this the archdeacon would by no means assent. It was not well, however, to argue the case against Eleanor in her own drawing-room, and so they both walked forth and discussed the matter in all its bearings under the elm-trees of the close. Mr. Harding also explained to his son-in-law what had been the purport, at any rate the alleged purport, of Mr. Slope’s last visit to the widow. He, however, stated that he could not bring himself to believe that Mr. Slope had any real anxiety such as that he had pretended. “I cannot forget his demeanour to myself,” said Mr. Harding, “and it is not possible that his ideas should have changed so soon.”

“I see it all,” said the archdeacon. “The sly tartuffe! He thinks to buy the daughter by providing for the father. He means to show how powerful he is, how good he is, and how much he is willing to do for her beaux yeux; yes, I see it all now. But we’ll be too many for him yet, Mr. Harding;” he said, turning to his companion with some gravity and pressing his hand upon the other’s arm. “It would, perhaps, be better for you to lose the hospital than get it on such terms.”

“Lose it!” said Mr. Harding; “why I’ve lost it already. I don’t want it. I’ve made up my mind to do without it. I’ll withdraw altogether. I’ll just go and write a line to the bishop and tell him that I withdraw my claim altogether.”

Nothing would have pleased him better than to be allowed to escape from the trouble and difficulty in such a manner. But he was now going too fast for the archdeacon.

“No—no—no! We’ll do no such thing,” said Dr. Grantly. “We’ll still have the hospital. I hardly doubt but that we’ll have it. But not by Mr. Slope’s assistance. If that be necessary, we’ll lose it; but we’ll have it, spite of his teeth, if we can. Arabin will be at Plumstead to-morrow; you must come over and talk to him.”

The two now turned into the cathedral library, which was used by the clergymen of the close as a sort of ecclesiastical club-room, for writing sermons and sometimes letters; also for reading theological works and sometimes magazines and newspapers. The theological works were not disturbed, perhaps, quite as often as from the appearance of the building the outside public might have been led to expect. Here the two allies settled on their course of action. The archdeacon wrote a letter to the bishop, strongly worded, but still respectful, in which he put forward his father-in-law’s claim to the appointment and expressed his own regret that he had not been able to see his lordship when he called. Of Mr. Slope he made no mention whatsoever. It was then settled that Mr. Harding should go out to Plumstead on the following day, and after considerable discussion on the matter the archdeacon proposed to ask Eleanor there also, so as to withdraw her, if possible, from Mr. Slope’s attentions. “A week or two,” said he, “may teach her what he is, and while she is there she will be out of harm’s way. Mr. Slope won’t come there after her.”

Eleanor was not a little surprised when her brother-in-law came back and very civilly pressed her to go out to Plumstead with her father. She instantly perceived that her father had been fighting her battles for her behind her back. She felt thankful to him, and for his sake she would not show her resentment to the archdeacon by refusing his invitation. But she could not, she said, go on the morrow; she had an invitation to drink tea at the Stanhopes, which she had promised to accept. She would, she added, go with her father on the next day, if he would wait; or she would follow him.

“The Stanhopes!” said Dr. Grantly. “I did not know you were so intimate with them.”

“I did not know it myself,” said she, “till Miss Stanhope called yesterday. However, I like her very much, and I have promised to go and play chess with some of them.”

“Have they a party there?” said the archdeacon, still fearful of Mr. Slope.

“Oh, no,” said Eleanor; “Miss Stanhope said there was to be nobody at all. But she had heard that Mary had left me for a few weeks, and she had learnt from someone that I play chess, and so she came over on purpose to ask me to go in.”

“Well, that’s very friendly,” said the ex-warden. “They certainly do look more like foreigners than English people, but I dare say they are none the worse for that.”

The archdeacon was inclined to look upon the Stanhopes with favourable eyes, and had nothing to object on the matter. It was therefore arranged that Mr. Harding should postpone his visit to Plumstead for one day and then take with him Eleanor, the baby, and the nurse.

Mr. Slope is certainly becoming of some importance in Barchester.

CHAPTER XIX

Barchester by Moonlight

There was much cause for grief and occasional perturbation of spirits in the Stanhope family, but yet they rarely seemed to be grieved or to be disturbed. It was the peculiar gift of each of them that each was able to bear his or her own burden without complaint, and perhaps without sympathy. They habitually looked on the sunny side of the wall, if there was a gleam on either side for them to look at; if there was none, they endured the shade with an indifference which, if not stoical, answered the end at which the Stoics aimed. Old Stanhope could not but feel that he had ill-performed his duties as a father and a clergyman, and could hardly look forward to his own death without grief at the position in which he would leave his family. His income for many years had been as high as Ł3,000 a year, and yet they had among them no other provision than their mother’s fortune of Ł10,000. He had not only spent his income, but was in debt. Yet with all this he seldom showed much outward sign of trouble.

It was the same with the mother. If she added little to the pleasures of her children, she detracted still less: she neither grumbled at her lot, nor spoke much of her past or future sufferings; as long as she had a maid to adjust her dress, and had those dresses well made, nature with her was satisfied. It was the same with the children. Charlotte never rebuked her father with the prospect of their future poverty, nor did it seem to grieve her that she was becoming an old maid so quickly; her temper was rarely ruffled, and, if we might judge by her appearance, she was always happy. The signora was not so sweet-tempered, but she possessed much enduring courage; she seldom complained—never, indeed, to her family. Though she had a cause for affliction which would have utterly broken down the heart of most women as beautiful as she and as devoid of all religious support, yet she bore her suffering in silence, or alluded to it only to elicit the sympathy and stimulate the admiration of the men with whom she flirted. As to Bertie, one would have imagined from the sound of his voice and the gleam of his eye that he had not a sorrow nor a care in the world. Nor had he. He was incapable of anticipating to-morrow’s griefs. The prospect of future want no more disturbed his appetite than does that of the butcher’s knife disturb the appetite of the sheep.

Such was the usual tenor of their way; but there were rare exceptions. Occasionally the father would allow an angry glance to fall from his eye, and the lion would send forth a low dangerous roar as though he meditated some deed of blood. Occasionally also Madame Neroni would become bitter against mankind, more than usually antagonistic to the world’s decencies, and would seem as though she was about to break from her moorings and allow herself to be carried forth by the tide of her feelings to utter ruin and shipwreck. She, however, like the rest of them, had no real feelings, could feel no true passion. In that was her security. Before she resolved on any contemplated escapade she would make a small calculation, and generally summed up that the Stanhope villa or even Barchester close was better than the world at large.

They were most irregular in their hours. The father was generally the earliest in the breakfast-parlour, and Charlotte would soon follow and give him his coffee, but the others breakfasted anywhere, anyhow, and at any time. On the morning after the archdeacon’s futile visit to the palace, Dr. Stanhope came downstairs with an ominously dark look about his eyebrows; his white locks were rougher than usual, and he breathed thickly and loudly as he took his seat in his armchair. He had open letters in his hand, and when Charlotte came into the room, he was still reading them. She went up and kissed him as was her wont, but he hardly noticed her as she did so, and she knew at once that something was the matter.

“What’s the meaning of that?” said he, throwing over the table a letter with a Milan postmark. Charlotte was a little frightened as she took it up, but her mind was relieved when she saw that it was merely the bill of their Italian milliner. The sum total was certainly large, but not so large as to create an important row.

“It’s for our clothes, Papa, for six months before we came here. The three of us can’t dress for nothing, you know.”

“Nothing, indeed!” said he, looking at the figures which, in Milanese denominations, were certainly monstrous.

“The man should have sent it to me,” said Charlotte.

“I wish he had with all my heart—if you would have paid it. I see enough in it to know that three quarters of it are for Madeline.”

“She has little else to amuse her, sir,” said Charlotte with true good nature.

“And I suppose he has nothing else to amuse him,” said the doctor, throwing over another letter to his daughter. It was from some member of the family of Sidonia, and politely requested the father to pay a small trifle of Ł700, being the amount of a bill discounted in favour of Mr. Ethelbert Stanhope and now overdue for a period of nine months.

Charlotte read the letter, slowly folded it up, and put it under the edge of the tea-tray.

“I suppose he has nothing to amuse him but discounting bills with Jews. Does he think I’ll pay that?”

“I am sure he thinks no such thing,” said she.

“And who does he think will pay it?”

“As far as honesty goes I suppose it won’t much matter if it is never paid,” said she. “I dare say he got very little of it.”

“I suppose it won’t much matter either,” said the father, “if he goes to prison and rots there. It seems to me that that’s the other alternative.”

Dr. Stanhope spoke of the custom of his youth. But his daughter, though she had lived so long abroad, was much more completely versed in the ways of the English world. “If the man arrests him,” said she, “he must go through the court.”

It is thus, thou great family of Sidonia—it is thus that we Gentiles treat thee, when, in our extremest need, thou and thine have aided us with mountains of gold as big as lions—and occasionally with wine-warrants and orders for dozens of dressing-cases.

“What, and become an insolvent?” said the doctor.

“He’s that already,” said Charlotte, wishing always to get over a difficulty.

“What a condition,” said the doctor, “for the son of a clergyman of the Church of England.”

“I don’t see why clergymen’s sons should pay their debts more than other young men,” said Charlotte.

“He’s had as much from me since he left school as is held sufficient for the eldest son of many a nobleman,” said the angry father.

“Well, sir,” said Charlotte, “give him another chance.”

“What!” said the doctor, “do you mean that I am to pay that Jew?”

“Oh, no! I wouldn’t pay him, he must take his chance; and if the worst comes to the worst, Bertie must go abroad. But I want you to be civil to Bertie and let him remain here as long as we stop. He has a plan in his head that may put him on his feet after all.”

“Has he any plan for following up his profession?”

“Oh, he’ll do that too; but that must follow. He’s thinking of getting married.”

Just at that moment the door opened, and Bertie came in whistling. The doctor immediately devoted himself to his egg and allowed Bertie to whistle himself round to his sister’s side without noticing him.

Charlotte gave a sign to him with her eye, first glancing at her father, and then at the letter, the corner of which peeped out from under the tea-tray. Bertie saw and understood, and with the quiet motion of a cat he abstracted the letter and made himself acquainted with its contents. The doctor, however, had seen him, deep as he appeared to be mersed in his egg-shell, and said in his harshest voice, “Well, sir, do you know that gentleman?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bertie. “I have a sort of acquaintance with him, but none that can justify him in troubling you. If you will allow me, sir, I will answer this.”

“At any rate I shan’t,” said the father, and then he added, after a pause, “Is it true, sir, that you owe the man Ł700?”

“Well,” said Bertie, “I think I should be inclined to dispute the amount, if I were in a condition to pay him such of it as I really do owe him.”

“Has he your bill for Ł700?” said the father, speaking very loudly and very angrily.

“Well, I believe he has,” said Bertie, “but all the money I ever got from him was Ł150.”

“And what became of the Ł550?”

“Why, sir, the commission was Ł100 or so, and I took the remainder in paving-stones and rocking-horses.”

“Paving-stones and rocking-horses!” said the doctor. “Where are they?”

“Oh, sir, I suppose they are in London somewhere—but I’ll inquire if you wish for them.”

“He’s an idiot,” said the doctor, “and it’s sheer folly to waste more money on him. Nothing can save him from ruin,” and so saying, the unhappy father walked out of the room.

“Would the governor like to have the paving-stones?” said Bertie to his sister.

“I’ll tell you what,” said she. “If you don’t take care, you will find yourself loose upon the world without even a house over your head; you don’t know him as well as I do. He’s very angry.”

Bertie stroked his big beard, sipped his tea, chatted over his misfortunes in a half-comic, half-serious tone, and ended by promising his sister that he would do his very best to make himself agreeable to the Widow Bold. Then Charlotte followed her father to his own room, softened down his wrath, and persuaded him to say nothing more about the Jew bill discounter, at any rate for a few weeks. He even went so far as to say he would pay the Ł700, or at any rate settle the bill, if he saw a certainty of his son’s securing for himself anything like a decent provision in life. Nothing was said openly between them about poor Eleanor, but the father and the daughter understood each other.

They all met together in the drawing-room at nine o’clock, in perfect good humour with each other, and about that hour Mrs. Bold was announced. She had never been in the house before, though she had of course called, and now she felt it strange to find herself there in her usual evening dress, entering the drawing-room of these strangers in this friendly, unceremonious way, as though she had known them all her life. But in three minutes they made her at home. Charlotte tripped downstairs and took her bonnet from her, and Bertie came to relieve her from her shawl, and the signora smiled on her as she could smile when she chose to be gracious, and the old doctor shook hands with her in a kind benedictory manner that went to her heart at once and made her feel that he must be a good man.

She had not been seated for above five minutes when the door again opened and Mr. Slope was announced. She felt rather surprised, because she was told that nobody was to be there, and it was very evident from the manner of some of them that Mr. Slope was not unexpected. But still there was not much in it. In such invitations a bachelor or two more or less are always spoken of as nobodies, and there was no reason why Mr. Slope should not drink tea at Dr. Stanhope’s as well as Eleanor herself. He, however, was very much surprised and not very much gratified at finding that his own embryo spouse made one of the party. He had come there to gratify himself by gazing on Madame Neroni’s beauty and listening to and returning her flattery: and though he had not owned as much to himself, he still felt that if he spent the evening as he had intended to do, he might probably not thereby advance his suit with Mrs. Bold.

The signora, who had no idea of a rival, received Mr. Slope with her usual marks of distinction. As he took her hand, she made some confidential communication to him in a low voice, declaring that she had a plan to communicate to him after tea, and was evidently prepared to go on with her work of reducing the chaplain to a state of captivity. Poor Mr. Slope was rather beside himself. He thought that Eleanor could not but have learnt from his demeanour that he was an admirer of her own, and he had also flattered himself that the idea was not unacceptable to her. What would she think of him if he now devoted himself to a married woman!

But Eleanor was not inclined to be severe in her criticisms on him in this respect, and felt no annoyance of any kind, when she found herself seated between Bertie and Charlotte Stanhope. She had no suspicion of Mr. Slope’s intentions; she had no suspicion even of the suspicion of other people; but still she felt well-pleased not to have Mr. Slope too near to her.

And she was not ill-pleased to have Bertie Stanhope near her. It was rarely indeed that he failed to make an agreeable impression on strangers. With a bishop indeed who thought much of his own dignity it was possible that he might fail, but hardly with a young and pretty woman. He possessed the tact of becoming instantly intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, and sometimes made them dangerous.

When tea was over, Charlotte went to the open window and declared loudly that the full harvest moon was much too beautiful to be disregarded, and called them all to look at it. To tell the truth there was but one there who cared much about the moon’s beauty, and that one was not Charlotte, but she knew how valuable an aid to her purpose the chaste goddess might become, and could easily create a little enthusiasm for the purpose of the moment. Eleanor and Bertie were soon with her. The doctor was now quiet in his armchair, and Mrs. Stanhope in hers, both prepared for slumber.

“Are you a Whewellite or a Brewsterite, or a t’othermanite, Mrs. Bold?” said Charlotte, who knew a little about everything, and had read about a third of each of the books to which she alluded.

“Oh!” said Eleanor; “I have not read any of the books, but I feel sure that there is one man in the moon at least, if not more.”

“You don’t believe in the pulpy gelatinous matter?” said Bertie.

“I heard about that,” said Eleanor, “and I really think it’s almost wicked to talk in such a manner. How can we argue about God’s power in the other stars from the laws which he has given for our rule in this one?”

“How indeed!” said Bertie. “Why shouldn’t there be a race of salamanders in Venus? And even if there be nothing but fish in Jupiter, why shouldn’t the fish there be as wide awake as the men and women here?”

“That would be saying very little for them,” said Charlotte. “I am for Dr. Whewell myself, for I do not think that men and women are worth being repeated in such countless worlds. There may be souls in other stars, but I doubt their having any bodies attached to them. But come, Mrs. Bold, let us put our bonnets on and walk round the close. If we are to discuss sidereal questions, we shall do so much better under the towers of the cathedral than stuck in this narrow window.”

Mrs. Bold made no objection, and a party was made to walk out. Charlotte Stanhope well knew the rule as to three being no company, and she had therefore to induce her sister to allow Mr. Slope to accompany them.

“Come, Mr. Slope,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll join us. We shall be in again in a quarter of an hour, Madeline.”

Madeline read in her eye all that she had to say, knew her object, and as she had to depend on her sister for so many of her amusements, she felt that she must yield. It was hard to be left alone while others of her own age walked out to feel the soft influence of the bright night, but it would be harder still to be without the sort of sanction which Charlotte gave to all her flirtations and intrigues. Charlotte’s eye told her that she must give up just at present for the good of the family, and so Madeline obeyed.

But Charlotte’s eyes said nothing of the sort to Mr. Slope. He had no objection at all to the tęte-ŕ-tęte with the signora which the departure of the other three would allow him, and gently whispered to her, “I shall not leave you alone.”

“Oh, yes,” said she; “go—pray go, pray go, for my sake. Do not think that I am so selfish. It is understood that nobody is kept within for me. You will understand this too when you know me better. Pray join them, Mr. Slope, but when you come in speak to me for five minutes before you leave us.”

Mr. Slope understood that he was to go, and he therefore joined the party in the hall. He would have had no objection at all to this arrangement, if he could have secured Mrs. Bold’s arm; but this of course was out of the question. Indeed, his fate was very soon settled, for no sooner had he reached the hall-door than Miss Stanhope put her hand within his arm, and Bertie walked off with Eleanor just as naturally as though she were already his own property.

And so they sauntered forth: first they walked round the close, according to their avowed intent; then they went under the old arched gateway below St. Cuthbert’s little church, and then they turned behind the grounds of the bishop’s palace, and so on till they came to the bridge just at the edge of the town, from which passers-by can look down into the gardens of Hiram’s Hospital; and here Charlotte and Mr. Slope, who were in advance, stopped till the other two came up to them. Mr. Slope knew that the gable-ends and old brick chimneys which stood up so prettily in the moonlight were those of Mr. Harding’s late abode, and would not have stopped on such a spot, in such company, if he could have avoided it; but Miss Stanhope would not take the hint which he tried to give.

“This is a very pretty place, Mrs. Bold,” said Charlotte; “by far the prettiest place near Barchester. I wonder your father gave it up.”

It was a very pretty place, and now by the deceitful light of the moon looked twice larger, twice prettier, twice more antiquely picturesque than it would have done in truth-telling daylight. Who does not know the air of complex multiplicity and the mysterious interesting grace which the moon always lends to old gabled buildings half-surrounded, as was the hospital, by fine trees! As seen from the bridge on the night of which we are speaking, Mr. Harding’s late abode did look very lovely, and though Eleanor did not grieve at her father’s having left it, she felt at the moment an intense wish that he might be allowed to return.

“He is going to return to it almost immediately, is he not?” asked Bertie.

Eleanor made no immediate reply. Many such a question passes unanswered without the notice of the questioner, but such was not now the case. They all remained silent as though expecting her to reply, and after a moment or two, Charlotte said, “I believe it is settled that Mr. Harding returns to the hospital, is it not?”

“I don’t think anything about it is settled yet,” said Eleanor.

“But it must be a matter of course,” said Bertie; “that is, if your father wishes it. Who else on earth could hold it after what has occurred?”

Eleanor quietly made her companion understand that the matter was one which she could not discuss in the present company, and then they passed on. Charlotte said she would go a short way up the hill out of the town so as to look back upon the towers of the cathedral, and as Eleanor leant upon Bertie’s arm for assistance in the walk, she told him how the matter stood between her father and the bishop.

“And, he,” said Bertie, pointing on to Mr. Slope, “what part does he take in it?”

Eleanor explained how Mr. Slope had at first endeavoured to tyrannize over her father, but how he had latterly come round and done all he could to talk the bishop over in Mr. Harding’s favour. “But my father,” she said, “is hardly inclined to trust him; they all say he is so arrogant to the old clergymen of the city.”

“Take my word for it,” said Bertie, “your father is right. If I am not very much mistaken, that man is both arrogant and false.”

They strolled up to the top of the hill and then returned through the fields by a foot-path which leads by a small wooden bridge, or rather a plank with a rustic rail to it, over the river to the other side of the cathedral from that at which they had started. They had thus walked round the bishop’s grounds, through which the river runs, and round the cathedral and adjacent fields, and it was past eleven before they reached the doctor’s door.

“It is very late,” said Eleanor; “it will be a shame to disturb your mother again at such an hour.”

“Oh”’ said Charlotte, laughing, “you won’t disturb Mamma; I dare say she is in bed by this time, and Madeline would be furious if you did not come in and see her. Come, Bertie, take Mrs. Bold’s bonnet from her.”

They went upstairs and found the signora alone, reading. She looked somewhat sad and melancholy, but not more so perhaps than was sufficient to excite additional interest in the bosom of Mr. Slope; and she was soon deep in whispered intercourse with that happy gentleman, who was allowed to find a resting-place on her sofa. The signora had a way of whispering that was peculiarly her own, and was exactly the reverse of that which prevails among great tragedians. The great tragedian hisses out a positive whisper, made with bated breath, and produced by inarticulated tongue-formed sounds, but yet he is audible through the whole house. The signora, however, used no hisses and produced all her words in a clear, silver tone, but they could only be heard by the ear into which they were poured.

Charlotte hurried and scurried about the room hither and thither, doing, or pretending to do many things; then, saying something about seeing her mother, ran upstairs. Eleanor was thus left alone with Bertie, and she hardly felt an hour fly by her. To give Bertie his due credit, he could not have played his cards better. He did not make love to her, nor sigh, nor look languishing, but he was amusing and familiar, yet respectful; and when he left Eleanor at her own door at one o’clock, which he did by the by with the assistance of the now jealous Slope, she thought that he was one of the most agreeable men and the Stanhopes decidedly the most agreeable family that she had ever met.

CHAPTER XX

Mr. Arabin

The Rev. Francis Arabin, fellow of Lazarus, late professor of poetry at Oxford, and present vicar of St. Ewold, in the diocese of Barchester, must now be introduced personally to the reader. He is worthy of a new volume, and as he will fill a conspicuous place in it, it is desirable that he should be made to stand before the reader’s eye by the aid of such portraiture as the author is able to produce.

It is to be regretted that no mental method of daguerreotype or photography has yet been discovered by which the characters of men can be reduced to writing and put into grammatical language with an unerring precision of truthful description. How often does the novelist feel, ay, and the historian also and the biographer, that he has conceived within his mind and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless, when he flies to pen and ink to perpetuate the portrait, his words forsake, elude, disappoint, and play the deuce with him, till at the end of a dozen pages the man described has no more resemblance to the man conceived than the sign-board at the corner of the street has to the Duke of Cambridge.

And yet such mechanical descriptive skill would hardly give more satisfaction to the reader than the skill of the photographer does to the anxious mother desirous to possess an absolute duplicate of her beloved child. The likeness is indeed true, but it is a dull, dead, unfeeling, inauspicious likeness. The face is indeed there, and those looking at it will know at once whose image it is, but the owner of the face will not be proud of the resemblance.

There is no royal road to learning, no short cut to the acquirement of any valuable art. Let photographers and daguerreotypers do what they will, and improve as they may with further skill on that which skill has already done, they will never achieve a portrait of the human face divine. Let biographers, novelists, and the rest of us groan as we may under the burdens which we so often feel too heavy for our shoulders; we must either bear them up like men, or own ourselves too weak for the work we have undertaken. There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

Labor omnia vincit improbus. Such should be the chosen motto of every labourer, and it may be that labour, if adequately enduring, may suffice at last to produce even some not untrue resemblance of the Rev. Francis Arabin.

Of his doings in the world, and of the sort of fame which he has achieved, enough has been already said. It has also been said that he is forty years of age, and still unmarried. He was the younger son of a country gentleman of small fortune in the north of England. At an early age he went to Winchester, and was intended by his father for New College; but though studious as a boy, he was not studious within the prescribed limits, and at the age of eighteen he left school with a character for talent, but without a scholarship. All that he had obtained, over and above the advantage of his character, was a gold medal for English verse, and hence was derived a strong presumption on the part of his friends that he was destined to add another name to the imperishable list of English poets.

From Winchester he went to Oxford, and was entered as a commoner at Balliol. Here his special career very soon commenced. He utterly eschewed the society of fast men, gave no wine-parties, kept no horses, rowed no boats, joined no rows, and was the pride of his college tutor. Such at least was his career till he had taken his little go, and then he commenced a course of action which, though not less creditable to himself as a man, was hardly so much to the taste of the tutor. He became a member of a vigorous debating society, and rendered himself remarkable there for humorous energy. Though always in earnest, yet his earnestness was always droll. To be true in his ideas, unanswerable in his syllogisms, and just in his aspirations was not enough for him. He had failed, failed in his own opinion as well as that of others when others came to know him, if he could not reduce the arguments of his opponents to an absurdity and conquer both by wit and reason. To say that his object was ever to raise a laugh would be most untrue. He hated such common and unnecessary evidence of satisfaction on the part of his hearers. A joke that required to be laughed at was, with him, not worth uttering. He could appreciate by a keener sense than that of his ears the success of his wit, and would see in the eyes of his auditors whether or no he was understood and appreciated.

He had been a religious lad before he left school. That is, he had addicted himself to a party in religion, and having done so had received that benefit which most men do who become partisans in such a cause. We are much too apt to look at schism in our church as an unmitigated evil. Moderate schism, if there may be such a thing, at any rate calls attention to the subject, draws in supporters who would otherwise have been inattentive to the matter, and teaches men to think upon religion. How great an amount of good of this description has followed that movement in the Church of England which commenced with the publication of Froude’s Remains!

As a boy young Arabin took up the cudgels on the side of the Tractarians, and at Oxford he sat for a while at the feet of the great Newman. To this cause he lent all his faculties. For it he concocted verses, for it he made speeches, for it he scintillated the brightest sparks of his quiet wit. For it he ate and drank and dressed and had his being. In due process of time he took his degree and wrote himself B.A., but he did not do so with any remarkable amount of academical éclat. He had occupied himself too much with High Church matters and the polemics, politics, and outward demonstrations usually concurrent with High Churchmanship to devote himself with sufficient vigour to the acquisition of a double first. He was not a double first, nor even a first class man, but he revenged himself on the university by putting firsts and double firsts out of fashion for the year and laughing down a species of pedantry which, at the age of twenty-three, leaves no room in a man’s mind for graver subjects than conic sections or Greek accents.

Greek accents, however, and conic sections were esteemed necessaries at Balliol, and there was no admittance there for Mr. Arabin within the list of its fellows. Lazarus, however, the richest and most comfortable abode of Oxford dons, opened its bosom to the young champion of a church militant. Mr. Arabin was ordained, and became a fellow soon after taking his degree, and shortly after that was chosen professor of poetry.

And now came the moment of his great danger. After many mental struggles, and an agony of doubt which may be well surmised, the great prophet of the Tractarians confessed himself a Roman Catholic. Mr. Newman left the Church of England and with him carried many a waverer. He did not carry off Mr. Arabin, but the escape which that gentleman had was a very narrow one. He left Oxford for awhile that he might meditate in complete peace on the step which appeared to him to be all but unavoidable, and shut himself up in a little village on the sea-shore of one of our remotest counties, that he might learn by communing with his own soul whether or no he could with a safe conscience remain within the pale of his mother church.

Things would have gone badly with him there had he been left entirely to himself. Everything was against him: all his worldly interests required him to remain a Protestant, and he looked on his worldly interests as a legion of foes, to get the better of whom was a point of extremest honour. In his then state of ecstatic agony such a conquest would have cost him little; he could easily have thrown away all his livelihood; but it cost him much to get over the idea that by choosing the Church of England he should be open in his own mind to the charge that he had been led to such a choice by unworthy motives. Then his heart was against him: he loved with a strong and eager love the man who had hitherto been his guide, and yearned to follow his footsteps. His tastes were against him: the ceremonies and pomps of the Church of Rome, their august feasts and solemn fasts, invited his imagination and pleased his eye. His flesh was against him: how great an aid would it be to a poor, weak, wavering man to be constrained to high moral duties, self-denial, obedience, and chastity by laws which were certain in their enactments, and not to be broken without loud, palpable, unmistakable sin! Then his faith was against him: he required to believe so much; panted so eagerly to give signs of his belief; deemed it so insufficient to wash himself simply in the waters of Jordan; that some great deed, such as that of forsaking everything for a true Church, had for him allurements almost past withstanding.

Mr. Arabin was at this time a very young man, and when he left Oxford for his far retreat was much too confident in his powers of fence, and too apt to look down on the ordinary sense of ordinary people, to expect aid in the battle that he had to fight from any chance inhabitants of the spot which he had selected. But Providence was good to him; there, in that all but desolate place, on the storm-beat shore of that distant sea, he met one who gradually calmed his mind, quieted his imagination, and taught him something of a Christian’s duty. When Mr. Arabin left Oxford, he was inclined to look upon the rural clergymen of most English parishes almost with contempt. It was his ambition, should he remain within the fold of their church, to do somewhat towards redeeming and rectifying their inferiority and to assist in infusing energy and faith into the hearts of Christian ministers, who were, as he thought, too often satisfied to go through life without much show of either.

And yet it was from such a one that Mr. Arabin in his extremest need received that aid which he so much required. It was from the poor curate of a small Cornish parish that he first learnt to know that the highest laws for the governance of a Christian’s duty must act from within and not from without; that no man can become a serviceable servant solely by obedience to written edicts; and that the safety which he was about to seek within the gates of Rome was no other than the selfish freedom from personal danger which the bad soldier attempts to gain who counterfeits illness on the eve of battle.

Mr. Arabin returned to Oxford a humbler but a better and a happier man, and from that time forth he put his shoulder to the wheel as a clergyman of the Church for which he had been educated. The intercourse of those among whom he familiarly lived kept him staunch to the principles of that system of the Church to which he had always belonged. Since his severance from Mr. Newman, no one had had so strong an influence over him as the head of his college. During the time of his expected apostasy Dr. Gwynne had not felt much predisposition in favour of the young fellow. Though a High Churchman himself within moderate limits, Dr. Gwynne felt no sympathy with men who could not satisfy their faiths with the Thirty-nine Articles. He regarded the enthusiasm of such as Newman as a state of mind more nearly allied to madness than to religion, and when he saw it evinced by very young men, he was inclined to attribute a good deal of it to vanity. Dr. Gwynne himself, though a religious man, was also a thoroughly practical man of the world, and he regarded with no favourable eye the tenets of anyone who looked on the two things as incompatible. When he found that Mr. Arabin was a half Roman, he began to regret all he had done towards bestowing a fellowship on so unworthy a recipient; and when again he learnt that Mr. Arabin would probably complete his journey to Rome, he regarded with some satisfaction the fact that in such case the fellowship would be again vacant.

When, however, Mr. Arabin returned and professed himself a confirmed Protestant, the Master of Lazarus again opened his arms to him, and gradually he became the pet of the college. For some little time he was saturnine, silent, and unwilling to take any prominent part in university broils, but gradually his mind recovered, or rather made its tone, and he became known as a man always ready at a moment’s notice to take up the cudgels in opposition to anything that savoured of an evangelical bearing. He was great in sermons, great on platforms, great at after-dinner conversations, and always pleasant as well as great. He took delight in elections, served on committees, opposed tooth and nail all projects of university reform, and talked jovially over his glass of port of the ruin to be anticipated by the Church and of the sacrilege daily committed by the Whigs. The ordeal through which he had gone in resisting the blandishments of the lady of Rome had certainly done much towards the strengthening of his character. Although in small and outward matters he was self-confident enough, nevertheless in things affecting the inner man he aimed at a humility of spirit which would never have been attractive to him but for that visit to the coast of Cornwall. This visit he now repeated every year.

Such is an interior view of Mr. Arabin at the time when he accepted the living of St. Ewold. Exteriorly, he was not a remarkable person. He was above the middle height, well-made, and very active. His hair, which had been jet black, was now tinged with gray, but his face bore no sign of years. It would perhaps be wrong to say that he was handsome, but his face was nevertheless pleasant to look upon. The cheek-bones were rather too high for beauty, and the formation of the forehead too massive and heavy: but the eyes, nose, and mouth were perfect. There was a continual play of lambent fire about his eyes, which gave promise of either pathos or humour whenever he essayed to speak, and that promise was rarely broken. There was a gentle play about his mouth which declared that his wit never descended to sarcasm, and that there was no ill-nature in his repartee.

Mr. Arabin was a popular man among women, but more so as a general than a special favourite. Living as a fellow at Oxford, marriage with him had been out of the question, and it may be doubted whether he had ever allowed his heart to be touched. Though belonging to a church in which celibacy is not the required lot of its ministers, he had come to regard himself as one of those clergymen to whom to be a bachelor is almost a necessity. He had never looked for parochial duty, and his career at Oxford was utterly incompatible with such domestic joys as a wife and nursery. He looked on women, therefore, in the same light that one sees them regarded by many Romish priests. He liked to have near him that which was pretty and amusing, but women generally were little more to him than children. He talked to them without putting out all his powers, and listened to them without any idea that what he should hear from them could either actuate his conduct or influence his opinion.

Such was Mr. Arabin, the new vicar of St. Ewold, who is going to stay with the Grantlys at Plumstead Episcopi.

Mr. Arabin reached Plumstead the day before Mr. Harding and Eleanor, and the Grantly family were thus enabled to make his acquaintance and discuss his qualifications before the arrival of the other guests. Griselda was surprised to find that he looked so young, but she told Florinda her younger sister, when they had retired for the night, that he did not talk at all like a young man: and she decided with the authority that seventeen has over sixteen that he was not at all nice, although his eyes were lovely. As usual, sixteen implicitly acceded to the dictum of seventeen in such a matter, and said that he certainly was not nice. They then branched off on the relative merits of other clerical bachelors in the vicinity, and both determined without any feeling of jealousy between them that a certain Rev. Augustus Green was by many degrees the most estimable of the lot. The gentleman in question had certainly much in his favour, as, having a comfortable allowance from his father, he could devote the whole proceeds of his curacy to violet gloves and unexceptionable neck ties. Having thus fixedly resolved that the newcomer had nothing about him to shake the pre-eminence of the exalted Green, the two girls went to sleep in each other’s arms, contented with themselves and the world.

Mrs. Grantly at first sight came to much the same conclusion about her husband’s favourite as her daughters had done, though, in seeking to measure his relative value, she did not compare him to Mr. Green; indeed, she made no comparison by name between him and anyone else; but she remarked to her husband that one person’s swans were very often another person’s geese, thereby clearly showing that Mr. Arabin had not yet proved his qualifications in swanhood to her satisfaction.

“Well, Susan,” said he, rather offended at hearing his friend spoken of so disrespectfully, “if you take Mr. Arabin for a goose, I cannot say that I think very highly of your discrimination.”

“A goose! No, of course, he’s not a goose. I’ve no doubt he’s a very clever man. But you’re so matter-of-fact, Archdeacon, when it suits your purpose, that one can’t trust oneself to any façon de parler. I’ve no doubt Mr. Arabin is a very valuable man—at Oxford—and that he’ll be a good vicar at St. Ewold. All I mean is that, having passed one evening with him, I don’t find him to be absolutely a paragon. In the first place, if I am not mistaken, he is a little inclined to be conceited.”

“Of all the men that I know intimately,” said the archdeacon, “Arabin is, in my opinion, the most free from any taint of self-conceit. His fault is that he’s too diffident.”

“Perhaps so,” said the lady; “only I must own I did not find it out this evening.”

Nothing further was said about him. Dr. Grantly thought that his wife was abusing Mr. Arabin merely because he had praised him, and Mrs. Grantly knew that it was useless arguing for or against any person in favour of or in opposition to whom the archdeacon had already pronounced a strong opinion.

In truth, they were both right. Mr. Arabin was a diffident man in social intercourse with those whom he did not intimately know; when placed in situations which it was his business to fill, and discussing matters with which it was his duty to be conversant, Mr. Arabin was from habit brazen-faced enough. When standing on a platform in Exeter Hall, no man would be less mazed than he by the eyes of the crowd before him, for such was the work which his profession had called on him to perform; but he shrank from a strong expression of opinion in general society, and his doing so not uncommonly made it appear that he considered the company not worth the trouble of his energy. He was averse to dictate when the place did not seem to him to justify dictation, and as those subjects on which people wished to hear him speak were such as he was accustomed to treat with decision, he generally shunned the traps there were laid to allure him into discussion, and, by doing so, not infrequently subjected himself to such charges as those brought against him by Mrs. Grantly.

Mr. Arabin, as he sat at his open window, enjoying the delicious moonlight and gazing at the gray towers of the church, which stood almost within the rectory grounds, little dreamed that he was the subject of so many friendly or unfriendly criticisms. Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so. It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned, and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest friends shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues.

It did not occur to Mr. Arabin that he was spoken of at all. It seemed to him, when he compared himself with his host, that he was a person of so little consequence to any, that he was worth no one’s words or thoughts. He was utterly alone in the world as regarded domestic ties and those inner familiar relations which are hardly possible between others than husbands and wives, parents and children, or brothers and sisters. He had often discussed with himself the necessity of such bonds for a man’s happiness in this world, and had generally satisfied himself with the answer that happiness in this world is not a necessity. Herein he deceived himself, or rather tried to do so. He, like others, yearned for the enjoyment of whatever he saw enjoyable, and though he attempted, with the modern stoicism of so many Christians, to make himself believe that joy and sorrow were matters which here should be held as perfectly indifferent, these things were not indifferent to him. He was tired of his Oxford rooms and his college life. He regarded the wife and children of his friend with something like envy; he all but coveted the pleasant drawing-room, with its pretty windows opening on to lawns and flower-beds, the apparel of the comfortable house, and—above all—the air of home which encompassed it all.

It will be said that no time can have been so fitted for such desires on his part as this, when he had just possessed himself of a country parish, of a living among fields and gardens, of a house which a wife would grace. It is true there was a difference between the opulence of Plumstead and the modest economy of St. Ewold, but surely Mr. Arabin was not a man to sigh after wealth! Of all men, his friends would have unanimously declared he was the last to do so. But how little our friends know us! In his period of stoical rejection of this world’s happiness, he had cast from him as utter dross all anxiety as to fortune. He had, as it were, proclaimed himself to be indifferent to promotion, and those who chiefly admired his talents, and would mainly have exerted themselves to secure to them their deserved reward, had taken him at his word. And now, if the truth must out, he felt himself disappointed—disappointed not by them but by himself. The daydream of his youth was over, and at the age of forty he felt that he was not fit to work in the spirit of an apostle. He had mistaken himself, and learned his mistake when it was past remedy. He had professed himself indifferent to mitres and diaconal residences, to rich livings and pleasant glebes, and now he had to own to himself that he was sighing for the good things of other men on whom, in his pride, he had ventured to look down.

Not for wealth, in its vulgar sense, had he ever sighed; not for the enjoyment of rich things had he ever longed; but for the allotted share of worldly bliss which a wife, and children, and happy home could give him, for that usual amount of comfort which he had ventured to reject as unnecessary for him, he did now feel that he would have been wiser to have searched.

He knew that his talents, his position, and his friends would have won for him promotion, had he put himself in the way of winning it. Instead of doing so, he had allowed himself to be persuaded to accept a living which would give him an income of some Ł300 a year should he, by marrying, throw up his fellowship. Such, at the age of forty, was the worldly result of labour which the world had chosen to regard as successful. The world also thought that Mr. Arabin was, in his own estimation, sufficiently paid. Alas! Alas! The world was mistaken, and Mr. Arabin was beginning to ascertain that such was the case.