their
way down into agricultural parts, and that the rural eye learns
to appreciate grace and beauty? There are those who think that
remodelled waists and new caps had better be kept to the towns; but
such people, if they would follow out their own argument, would wish
to see plough-boys painted with ruddle and milkmaids covered with
skins. For these and other reasons Lady Lufton always went to London
in April, and stayed there till the beginning of June. But for her
this was usually a period of penance. In London she was no very great
personage. She had never laid herself out for greatness of that sort,
and did not shine as a lady-patroness or state secretary in the
female cabinet of fashion. She was dull and listless, and without
congenial pursuits in London, and spent her happiest moments in
reading accounts of what was being done at Framley, and in writing
orders for further local information of the same kind. But on this
occasion there was a matter of vital import to give an interest of
its own to her visit to town. She was to entertain Griselda Grantly,
and, as far as might be possible, to induce her son to remain
in Griselda's society. The plan of the campaign was to be as
follows:--Mrs. Grantly and the archdeacon were in the first place to
go up to London for a month, taking Griselda with them; and then,
when they returned to Plumstead, Griselda was to go to Lady Lufton.
This arrangement was not at all points agreeable to Lady Lufton, for
she knew that Mrs. Grantly did not turn her back on the Hartletop
people quite as cordially as she should do, considering the terms of
the Lufton-Grantly family treaty. But then Mrs. Grantly might have
alleged in excuse the slow manner in which Lord Lufton proceeded in
the making and declaring of his love, and the absolute necessity
which there is for two strings to one's bow, when one string may be
in any way doubtful. Could it be possible that Mrs. Grantly had heard
anything of that unfortunate Platonic friendship with Lucy Robarts?

There came a letter from Mrs. Grantly just about the end of March,
which added much to Lady Lufton's uneasiness, and made her more
than ever anxious to be herself on the scene of action, and to have
Griselda in her own hands. After some communications of mere ordinary
importance with reference to the London world in general and the
Lufton-Grantly world in particular, Mrs. Grantly wrote confidentially
about her daughter:--"It would be useless to