nd bachelor's recreation for three or four days;
and he could not probably plead the desire of such gratifications as
a reason to his wife for a trip to London.

Married ladies, when your husbands find they are positively obliged to
attend their legal advisers, the nature of the duty to be performed is
generally of this description.

The archdeacon would not have dreamt of leaving London without going
to Cox and Cummins; and yet he had nothing to say to them. The game
was up; he plainly saw that Mr Harding in this matter was not to be
moved; his only remaining business on this head was to pay the bill
and have done with it; and I think it may be taken for granted,
that whatever the cause may be that takes a gentleman to a lawyer's
chambers, he never goes there to pay his bill.

Dr Grantly, however, in the eyes of Messrs Cox and Cummins,
represented the spiritualities of the diocese of Barchester, as Mr
Chadwick did the temporalities, and was, therefore, too great a man to
undergo the half-hour in the clerk's room. It will not be necessary
that we should listen to the notes of sorrow in which the archdeacon
bewailed to Mr Cox the weakness of his father-in-law, and the end
of all their hopes of triumph; nor need we repeat the various
exclamations of surprise with which the mournful intelligence was
received. No tragedy occurred, though Mr Cox, a short and somewhat
bull-necked man, was very near a fit of apoplexy when he first
attempted to ejaculate that fatal word--resign!

Over and over again did Mr Cox attempt to enforce on the archdeacon
the propriety of urging on Mr Warden the madness of the deed he was
about to do.

"Eight hundred a year!" said Mr Cox.

"And nothing whatever to do!" said Mr Cummins, who had joined the
conference.

"No private fortune, I believe," said Mr Cox.

"Not a shilling," said Mr Cummins, in a very low voice, shaking his
head.

"I never heard of such a case in all my experience," said Mr Cox.

"Eight hundred a year, and as nice a house as any gentleman could wish
to hang up his hat in," said Mr Cummins.

"And an unmarried daughter, I believe," said Mr Cox, with much moral
seriousness in his tone. The archdeacon only sighed as each separate
wail was uttered, and shook his head, signifying that the fatuity of
some people was past belief.

"I'll tell you what he might do," said Mr Cummins, brightening up.
"I'll tell you how you might save it:--let him exchange."

"Exchange wh