But there was still left one of the family—­not a Grantly, indeed, but one so nearly allied to them as to have his boat moored in the same harbour—­who, as the major well knew, would thoroughly sympathise with him.  This was old Mr Harding, his mother’s father—­the father 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 to 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 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?’

’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.’