’You would not, for instance, wish that Henry should marry a kitchen-maid.’

‘But is Miss Crawley a kitchen-maid, Susan?’

‘I don’t quite say that.’

’I am told that she has been educated infinitely more than most of the young ladies in the neighbourhood,’ said Mr Harding.

’You know what I mean, papa.  But the fact is, that it is impossible to deal with men.  They will never be reasonable.  A marriage such as this would be injurious to Henry; but it will not be ruinous; and as to disinheriting him for it, that would be downright wicked.’

‘I think so,’ said Mr Harding.

’But the archdeacon will look at it as though it would destroy Henry and Edith together, while you speak of it as though it were the best thing in the world.’

’If the young people love each other, I think it would be the best thing in the world,’ said Mr Harding.

’But, papa, you cannot but think that his father’s wish should go for something,’ said Mrs Grantly, who, desirous as she was on the one side to support her son, could not bear that her husband should, on the other side, be declared to be altogether in the wrong.

‘I do not know, my dear,’ said Mr Harding; ’but I do think that if the two young people are fond of each other, and if there is anything for them to live upon, it cannot be right to keep them apart.  You know, my dear, she is the daughter of a gentleman.’  Mrs Grantly upon this left her father almost brusquely, without speaking another word on the subject; for though she was opposed to the vehement anger of her husband, she could not endure the proposition now made by her father.

Mr Harding was at this time living all alone in the deanery.  For some few years the deanery had been his home, and as his youngest daughter was the dean’s wife, there could no more comfortable resting-place for the evening of his life.  During the last month or two the days had gone tediously long with him; for he had had the large house all to himself, and he was a man who did not love solitude.  It is hard to conceive that the old, whose thoughts have been all thought out, should ever love to live alone.  Solitude is surely for the young, who have time before them for the execution of schemes, and who can, therefore, take delight in thinking.  In these days the poor old man would wander about the rooms, shambling from one chamber to another, and would feel ashamed when the servants met him ever on the move.  He would make little apologies for his uneasiness, which they would accept graciously, understanding, after a fashion, why it was that he was uneasy.  ‘He ain’t got nothing to do,’ said the housemaid to the cook ’and as for reading, they say that some of the young ones can read all day sometimes, and all night too; but bless you, when you’re nigh eighty, reading don’t go for much.’  The housemaid was right as to Mr Harding’s reading.  He was not one who had read so much in his earlier days as to enable