as you call it, about
Sarah Thompson. That was a case in which you ought to have had your
own way."

"And this other is a case in which I shall have it. It's a pity that
there should be such a difference; isn't it?"

Then the wife perceived that, vexed as she was, it would be better
that she should say nothing further; and before she went to bed, she
wrote the note to Lady Lufton, as her husband recommended.

CHAPTER II

The Framley Set, and the Chaldicotes Set

It will be necessary that I should say a word or two of some of the
people named in the few preceding pages, and also of the localities
in which they lived. Of Lady Lufton herself enough, perhaps, has been
written to introduce her to my readers. The Framley property belonged
to her son; but as Lufton Park--an ancient ramshackle place in
another county--had heretofore been the family residence of the
Lufton family, Framley Court had been apportioned to her for her
residence for life. Lord Lufton himself was still unmarried; and as
he had no establishment at Lufton Park--which indeed had not been
inhabited since his grandfather died--he lived with his mother when
it suited him to live anywhere in that neighbourhood. The widow
would fain have seen more of him than he allowed her to do. He had a
shooting lodge in Scotland, and apartments in London, and a string of
horses in Leicestershire--much to the disgust of the county gentry
around him, who held that their own hunting was as good as any that
England could afford. His lordship, however, paid his subscription
to the East Barsetshire pack, and then thought himself at liberty to
follow his own pleasure as to his own amusement.

Framley itself was a pleasant country place, having about it nothing
of seignorial dignity or grandeur, but possessing everything
necessary for the comfort of country life. The house was a low
building of two stories, built at different periods, and devoid of
all pretensions to any style of architecture; but the rooms, though
not lofty, were warm and comfortable, and the gardens were trim and
neat beyond all others in the county. Indeed, it was for its gardens
only that Framley Court was celebrated. Village there was none,
properly speaking. The high road went winding about through the
Framley paddocks, shrubberies, and wood-skirted home fields, for a
mile and a half, not two hundred yards of which ran in a straight
line; and there was a cross-road which passed down through