The Last Chronicle of Barset

of his mother and of his aunt Mrs. Arabin⁠—whose home was now at the deanery. He was also to be at Plumstead during this Christmas, and he at any rate would give a ready assent to such a marriage as that which the major was proposing for himself. But then poor old Mr. Harding had been thoroughly deficient in that ambition which had served to aggrandize the family into which his daughter had married. He was a poor old man who, in spite of good friends⁠—for the late bishop of the diocese had been his dearest friend⁠—had never risen high in his profession, and had fallen even from the moderate altitude which he had attained. But he was a man whom all loved who knew him; and it was much to the credit of his son-in-law, the archdeacon, that, with all his tendencies to love rising suns, he had ever been true to Mr. Harding.

Major Grantly took his daughter with him, and on his arrival at Plumstead she of course was the first object of attention. Mrs. Grantly declared that she had grown immensely. The archdeacon complimented her red cheeks, and said that Cosby Lodge was as healthy a place as any in the county, while Mr. Harding, Edith’s great-grandfather, drew slowly from his pocket sundry treasures with which he had come prepared for the delight of the little girl. Charles Grantly and Lady Anne had no children, and the heir of all the Hartletops was too august to have been trusted to the embraces of her mother’s grandfather. Edith, therefore, was all that he had in that generation, and of Edith he was prepared to be as indulgent as he had been, in their time, of his grandchildren the Grantlys, and still was of his grandchildren the Arabins, and had been before that of his own daughters. “She’s more like Eleanor than anyone else,” said the old man in a plaintive tone. Now Eleanor was Mrs. Arabin, the dean’s wife, and was at this time⁠—if I were to say over forty I do not think I should be uncharitable. No one else saw the special likeness, but no one else remembered, as Mr. Harding did, what Eleanor had been when she was three years old.

“Aunt Nelly is in France,” said the child.

“Yes, my darling, aunt Nelly is in France, and I wish she were at home. Aunt Nelly has been away a long time.”

“I suppose she’ll stay till the dean picks her up on his way home?” said Mrs. Grantly.

“So she says in her letters. I heard from her yesterday, and I brought the letter, as I thought you’d like to see it.” Mrs. Grantly took the letter and read it, while her father still played with the child. The archdeacon and the major were standing together on the rug discussing the shooting at Chaldicotes, as to which the archdeacon had a strong opinion. “I’m quite sure that a man with a place like that does more good by preserving than by leaving it alone. The better head of game he has the richer the county will be generally. It is just the same with pheasants as it is with sheep and bullocks. A pheasant doesn’t cost more than he’s worth any more than a barn-door fowl. Besides, a man who preserves is always respected by the poachers, and the man who doesn’t is not.”

“There’s something in that, sir, certainly,” said the major.

“More than you think for, perhaps. Look at poor Sowerby, who went on there for years without a shilling. How he was respected, because he lived as the people around him expected a gentleman to live. Thorne will have a bad time of it, if he tries to change things.”

“Only think,” exclaimed Mrs. Grantly, “when Eleanor wrote she had not heard of that affair of poor Mr. Crawley’s.”

“Does she say anything about him?” asked the major.

“I’ll read what she says. ‘I see in Galignani that a clergyman in Barsetshire has been committed for theft. Pray tell me who it is. Not the bishop, I hope, for the credit of the diocese?’ ”

“I wish it were,” said the archdeacon.

“For shame, my dear,” said his wife.

“No shame at all. If we are to have a thief among us, I’d sooner find him in a bad man than a good one. Besides we should have a change at the palace, which would be a great thing.”

“But is it not odd that Eleanor should have heard nothing of it?” said Mrs. Grantly.

“It’s odd that you should not have mentioned it yourself.”

“I did not, certainly; nor you, papa, I suppose?”

Mr. Harding acknowledged that he had not spoken of it, and then they calculated that perhaps she might not have received any letter from her husband written since the news had reached him. “Besides, why should he have mentioned it?” said the major. “He only knows as yet of the inquiry about the cheque, and can have heard nothing of what was done by the magistrates.”

“Still it seems so odd that Eleanor should not have known of it, seeing that we have been talking of nothing else for the last week,” said Mrs. Grantly.

For two days the major said not a word of Grace Crawley to anyone. Nothing could be more courteous and complaisant than was his father’s conduct to him. Anything that he wanted for Edith was to be done. For himself there was no trouble which would not be taken. His hunting, and his shooting, and his fishing seemed to have become matters of paramount consideration to his father. And then the archdeacon became very confidential about money matters⁠—not offering anything to his son, which, as he well knew, would have been seen through as palpable bribery and corruption⁠—but telling him of this little scheme and of that, of one investment and of another;⁠—how he contemplated buying a small property here, and spending a few thousands on building there. “Of course it is all for you and your brother,” said the