y that Mary will be delighted to make the
visit.--Believe me, my dear Lord Bracy, yours most faithfully.

"JEFFREY WORTLE."

The Earl, when he read this, though there was not a word in it to which he
could take exception, was not altogether pleased. "Of course it will be
an engagement," he said to his wife.

"Of course it will," said the Countess. "But then Carstairs is so very
much in earnest. He would have done it for himself if you hadn't done it
for him."

"At any rate the Doctor is a gentleman," the Earl said, comforting
himself.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. PEACOCKE'S RETURN.

THE Earl's rejoinder to the Doctor was very short: "So let it be." There
was not another word in the body of the letter; but there was appended to
it a postscript almost equally short; "Lady Bracy will write to Mary and
settle with her some period for her visit." And so it came to be
understood by the Doctor, by Mrs. Wortle, and by Mary herself, that Mary
was engaged to Lord Carstairs.

The Doctor, having so far arranged the matter, said little or nothing more
on the subject, but turned his mind at once to that other affair of Mr.
and Mrs. Peacocke. It was evident to his wife, who probably alone
understood the buoyancy of his spirit and its corresponding susceptibility
to depression, that he at once went about Mr. Peacocke's affairs with
renewed courage. Mr. Peacocke should resume his duties as soon as he was
remarried, and let them see what Mrs. Stantiloup or the Bishop would dare
to say then! It was impossible, he thought, that parents would be such
asses as to suppose that their boys' morals could be affected to evil by
connection with a man so true, so gallant, and so manly as this. He did
not at this time say anything further as to abandoning the school, but
seemed to imagine that the vacancies would get themselves filled up as in
the course of nature. He ate his dinner again as though he liked it, and
abused the Liberals, and was anxious about the grapes and peaches, as was
always the case with him when things were going well. All this, as Mrs.
Wortle understood, had come to him from the brilliancy of Mary's
prospects.

But though he held his tongue on the subject, Mrs. Wortle did not. She
found it absolutely impossible not to talk of it when she was alone with
Mary, or alone with the Doctor. As he counselled her not to make Mary
think too much about it, she was obliged to hold her peace when both were
with her; but