ould be very difficult to rebuke him with good effect.

"You can advise him to find a wife for himself, and he will understand
well enough what that means," said Mrs. Grantly.

The archdeacon had nothing for it but groaning. There was Mr. Slope:
he was going to be made dean; he was going to take a wife; he was
about to achieve respectability and wealth, an excellent family
mansion, and a family carriage; he would soon be among the comfortable
_elite_ of the ecclesiastical world of Barchester; whereas his own
_protege_, the true scion of the true church, by whom he had sworn,
would be still but a poor vicar, and that with a very indifferent
character for moral conduct! It might be all very well recommending
Mr. Arabin to marry, but how would Mr. Arabin, when married, support
a wife?

Things were ordering themselves thus in Plumstead drawing-room when
Dr. and Mrs. Grantly were disturbed in their sweet discourse by the
quick rattle of a carriage and pair of horses on the gravel sweep.
The sound was not that of visitors, whose private carriages are
generally brought up to country-house doors with demure propriety,
but betokened rather the advent of some person or persons who were
in a hurry to reach the house, and had no intention of immediately
leaving it. Guests invited to stay a week, and who were conscious of
arriving after the first dinner-bell, would probably approach in such
a manner. So might arrive an attorney with the news of a granduncle's
death, or a son from college with all the fresh honours of a double
first. No one would have had himself driven up to the door of a
country-house in such a manner who had the slightest doubt of his own
right to force an entry.

"Who is it?" said Mrs. Grantly, looking at her husband.

"Who on earth can it be?" said the archdeacon to his wife. He then
quietly got up and stood with the drawing-room door open in his hand.
"Why, it's your father!"

It was indeed Mr. Harding, and Mr. Harding alone. He had come by
himself in a post-chaise with a couple of horses from Barchester,
arriving almost after dark, and evidently full of news. His visits
had usually been made in the quietest manner; he had rarely presumed
to come without notice, and had always been driven up in a modest
old green fly, with one horse, that hardly made itself heard as it
crawled up to the hall-door.

"Good gracious, Warden, is it you?" said the archdeacon, forgetting in
his surprise the events of the las