other, I should be contented with such a marriage. But, I must own, I am not quite satisfied at the idea of leaving her all alone with Lady Lufton. People will look on it as a settled thing when it is not settled, and very probably may not be settled, and that will do the poor girl harm. She is very much admired; there can be no doubt of that; and Lord Dumbello—"
The archdeacon opened his eyes still wider. He had had no idea that such a choice of sons-in-law was being prepared for him; and, to tell the truth, was almost bewildered by the height of his wife's ambition. Lord Lufton, with his barony and twenty thousand a year, might be accepted as just good enough; but, failing him, there was an embryo marquis, whose fortune would be more than ten times as great, all ready to accept his child! And then he thought, as husbands sometimes will think, of Susan Harding as she was when he had gone a-courting to her under the elms before the house in the warden's garden at Barchester, and of dear old Mr. Harding, his wife's father, who still lived in humble lodgings in that city; and as he thought, he wondered at and admired the greatness of that lady's mind.
"I never can forgive Lord De Terrier," said the lady, connecting various points together in her own mind.
"That's nonsense," said the archdeacon. "You must forgive him."
"And I must confess that it annoys me to leave London at present."
"It can't be helped," said the archdeacon, somewhat gruffly; for he was a man who, on certain points, chose to have his own way, and had it.
"Oh no, I know it can't be helped," said Mrs. Grantly, in a tone which implied a deep injury. "I know it can't be helped. Poor Griselda!" And then they went to bed.
On the next morning Griselda came to her, and in an interview that was strictly private her mother said more to her than she had ever yet spoken as to the prospects of her future life. Hitherto, on this subject, Mrs. Grantly had said little or nothing. She would have been well pleased that her daughter should have received the incense of Lord Lufton's vows—or, perhaps, as well pleased had it been the incense of Lord Dumbello's vows—without any interference on her part. In such case her child, she knew, would have told her with quite sufficient eagerness, and the matter in
