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Are you going to take Parson Grantly's offer, and let him have some of them?" Mrs Inglis shook her head. "Perhaps I ought," said she. "And yet I cannot make up my mind to do it." "No! of course, not! Not to him, anyhow! Do you suppose he'd ever read them? No! He only wants them to set up on his shelf to look at.
"It is Major Grantly's father." "The archdeacon?" "Yes, dear; Archdeacon Grantly. He is in the drawing-room." "Must I see him, Mrs Robarts?" "Well, Grace I think you must. I hardly know how you can refuse. He is an intimate friend of everybody here at Framley." "What will he say to me?" "Nay; that I cannot tell. I suppose you know "
In fact, the bishop is henpecked. The archdeacon's wife, in her happy home at Plumstead, knows how to assume the full privileges of her rank, and express her own mind in becoming tone and place. But Mrs Grantly's sway, if sway she has, is easy and beneficent.
It was not that the archdeacon's watch or her lover's chain, or Mrs Grantly's locket, or the little toy from Italy which Mrs Arabin brought to her from the treasures of the deanery, filled her heart with undue exultation.
She felt sure that Griselda despised her, little, brown, plain, and unimportant as she was. She herself could not despise Griselda in turn; indeed she could not but admire Miss Grantly's great beauty and dignity of demeanour; but she knew that she could never love her. It is hardly possible that the proud-hearted should love those who despise them; and Lucy Robarts was very proud-hearted.
While in this state he was encountered by the archdeacon. 'I wonder, said Dr Grantly, 'if it be true that Mr Slope and Mrs Bold come here together. Susan says she is almost sure she saw their faces in the same carriage as she got out of her own. Mr Arabin had nothing for it but to bear his testimony to the correctness of Mrs Grantly's eyesight.
If Eleanor did receive a letter from Mr. Slope, what was there in that to pollute the purity of Dr. Grantly's household? He was indignant that his daughter should be so judged and so spoken of, and he made up his mind that even as Mrs. Slope she must be dearer to him than any other creature on God's earth. He almost broke out and said as much, but for the moment he restrained himself.
Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his connexion with the poacher. Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr. Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case was clear as light against poor Acton. No alibi, he lived upon the spot.
Now it happened that when this second and more aggravated blast of the evil wind reached the rectory, the renewed waft of the tidings as to Major Grantly's infatuation regarding Miss Grace Crawley, which, on its renewal, seemed to bring with it something of confirmation, it chanced, I say, that at that moment Griselda, Marchioness of Hartletop, was gracing the paternal mansion.
Lord Dumbello had remained silent one whole evening in London with ineffable disgust, because Lord Lufton had been rather particular in his attentions; but then Lord Dumbello's muteness was his most eloquent mode of expression. Both Lady Hartletop and Mrs. Grantly, when they saw him, knew very well what he meant. But that match would not exactly have suited Mrs. Grantly's views.
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