LITMIR.BIZ

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my power to oblige him.”

      It would be a calumny on Mrs. Proudie to suggest that she was sitting in her bedroom with her ear at the keyhole during this interview. She had within her a spirit of decorum which prevented her from descending to such baseness. To put her ear to a keyhole, or to listen at a chink, was a trick for a housemaid. Mrs. Proudie knew this and therefore did not do it, but she stationed herself as near to the door as she well could, that she might if possible, get the advantage which the housemaid would have had without descending to the housemaid’s artifice.

      It was little, however, that she heard, and that little was only sufficient to deceive her. She saw nothing of that friendly pressure, perceived nothing of that concluded bargain; she did not even dream of the treacherous resolves which those two false men had made together to upset her in the pride of her station, to dash the cup from her lip before she had drunk of it, to sweep away all her power before she had tasted its sweets! Traitors that they were, the husband of her bosom and the outcast whom she had fostered and brought to the warmth of the world’s brightest fireside! But neither of them had the magnanimity of this woman. Though two men have thus leagued themselves together against her, even yet the battle is not lost.

      Mr. Slope felt pretty sure that Dr. Grantly would decline the honour of seeing him, and such turned out to be the case. The archdeacon, when the palace door was opened to him, was greeted by a note. Mr. Slope presented his compliments, &c. &c. The bishop was ill in his room and very greatly regretted, &c. &c. Mr. Slope had been charged with the bishop’s views, and if agreeable to the archdeacon, would do himself the honour, &c. &c. The archdeacon, however, was not agreeable, and having read his note in the hall, crumpled it up in his hand, and muttering something about sorrow for his lordship’s illness took his leave, without sending as much as a verbal message in answer to Mr. Slope’s note.

      “Ill!” said the archdeacon to himself as he flung himself into his brougham. “The man is absolutely a coward. He is afraid to see me. Ill, indeed!” The archdeacon was never ill himself and did not therefore understand that anyone else could in truth be prevented by illness from keeping an appointment. He regarded all such excuses as subterfuges, and in the present instance be was not far wrong.

      Dr. Grantly desired to be driven to his father-inlaw’s lodgings in the High Street, and hearing from the servant that Mr. Harding was at his daughter’s, followed him to Mrs. Bold’s house, and there found him. The archdeacon was fuming with rage when he got into the drawing-room, and had by this time nearly forgotten the pusillanimity of the bishop in the villainy of the chaplain.

      “Look at that,” said he, throwing Mr. Slope’s crumpled note to Mr. Harding. “I am to be told that if I choose I may have the honour of seeing Mr. Slope, and that too after a positive engagement with the bishop.”

      “But he says the bishop is ill,” said Mr. Harding.

      “Pshaw! You don’t mean to say that you are deceived by such an excuse as that. He was well enough yesterday. Now I tell you what, I will see the bishop, and I will tell him also very plainly what I think of his conduct. I will see him, or else Barchester will soon be too hot to hold him.”

      Eleanor was sitting in the room, but Dr. Grantly had hardly noticed her in his anger. Eleanor now said to him with the greatest innocence, “I wish you had seen Mr. Slope, Dr. Grantly, because I think perhaps it might have done good.”

      The archdeacon turned on her with almost brutal wrath. Had she at once owned that she had accepted Mr. Slope for her second husband he could hardly have felt more convinced of her belonging body and soul to the Slope and Proudie party than he now did on hearing her express such a wish as this. Poor Eleanor!

      “See him!” said the archdeacon glaring at her. “And why am I to be called on to lower myself in the world’s esteem and my own by coming in contact with such a man as that? I have hitherto lived among gentlemen, and do not mean to be dragged into other company by anybody.”

      Poor Mr. Harding well knew what the archdeacon meant, but Eleanor was as innocent as her own baby. She could not understand how the archdeacon could consider himself to be dragged into bad company by condescending to speak to Mr. Slope for a few minutes when the interests of her father might be served by his doing so.

      “I was talking for a full hour yesterday to Mr. Slope,” said she with some little assumption of dignity, “and I did not find myself lowered by it.”

      “Perhaps not,” said he. “But if you’ll be good enough to allow me, I shall judge for myself in such matters. And I tell you what, Eleanor; it will be much better for you if you will allow yourself to be guided also by the advice of those who are your friends. If you do not, you will be apt to find that you have no friends left who can advise you.”

      Eleanor blushed up to the roots of her hair. But even now she had not the slightest idea of what was passing in the archdeacon’s mind. No thought of love-making or love-receiving had yet found its way to her heart since the death of poor John Bold, and if it were possible that such a thought should spring there, the man must be far different from Mr. Slope that could give it birth.

      Nevertheless Eleanor blushed deeply, for she felt she was charged with improper conduct, and she did so with the more inward pain because her father did not instantly rally to her side — that father for whose sake and love she had submitted to be the receptacle of Mr. Slope’s confidence. She had given a detailed account of all that had passed to her father, and though he had not absolutely agreed with her about Mr. Slope’s views touching the hospital, yet he had said nothing to make her think that she had been wrong in talking to him.

      She was far too angry to humble herself before her brother-inlaw. Indeed, she had never accustomed herself to be very abject before him, and they had never been confidential allies. “I do not the least understand what you mean, Dr. Grantly,” said she. “I do not know that I can accuse myself of doing anything that my friends should disapprove. Mr. Slope called here expressly to ask what Papa’s wishes were about the hospital, and as, I believe he called with friendly intentions, I told him”’

      “Friendly intentions!” sneered the archdeacon.

      “I believe you greatly wrong Mr. Slope,” continued Eleanor, “but I have explained this to Papa already; and as you do not seem to approve of what I say, Dr. Grantly, I will with your permission leave you and Papa together;” so saying, she walked slowly out of the room.

      All this made Mr. Harding very unhappy. It was quite clear that the archdeacon and his wife had made up their minds that Eleanor was going to marry Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding could not really bring himself to think that she would do so, but yet he could not deny that circumstances made it appear that the man’s company was not disagreeable to her. She was now constantly seeing him, and yet she received visits from no other unmarried gentleman. She always took his part when his conduct was canvassed, although she was aware how personally objectionable he was to her friends. Then, again, Mr. Harding felt that if she should choose to become Mrs. Slope, he had nothing that he could justly urge against her doing so. She had full right to please herself, and he, as a father, could not say that she would disgrace herself by marrying a clergyman who stood so well before the world as Mr. Slope did. As for quarrelling with his daughter on account of such a marriage, and separating himself from her as the archdeacon had threatened to do, that, with Mr. Harding, would be out of the question. If she should determine to marry this man, he must get over his aversion as best he could. His Eleanor, his own old companion in their old happy home, must still be the friend of his bosom, the child of his heart. Let who would cast her off, he would not. If it were fated that he should have to sit in his old age at the same table with that man whom of all men he disliked the most, he would meet his fate as best he might. Anything to him would be preferable to the loss of his daughter.

      Such being his feelings, he hardly knew how to take part with Eleanor against the archdeacon, or with the archdeacon against Eleanor. It will be said that he should never have suspected her.— Alas! he never should have done so. But Mr. Harding was by no means a perfect character. In his indecision, his weakness, his proneness to be led by others, his want of self-confidence, he was very far from being perfect. And then it must be remembered

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