‘He would be much better here,’ said the archdeacon.  ’Of course you can have the carriage and go over.  We can breakfast at eight; and if you can bring him back with you, do.  I should tell him that he ought to come.’  Mrs Grantly made no answer to this, knowing very well that she could not bring herself to go beyond the gentlest persuasion with her father, and on the next morning she was at the deanery by ten o’clock.  Half-past ten was the hour at which the service began.  Mrs Baxter contrived to meet her before she saw her father, and begged her not to let it be known that any special tidings of Mr Harding’s failing strength had been sent from the deanery to Plumstead.  ‘And how is my father?’ asked Mrs Grantly.  ‘Well, then, ma’am,’ said Baxter, ’in one sense he’s finely.  He took a morsel of early lamb to his dinner yesterday, and relished it ever so well—­only he gave Miss Posy the best part of it.  And then he sat with Miss Posy quite happy for an hour or so.  And then he slept in his chair; and you know, ma’am, we never wake him.  And after that old Skulpit toddled up from the hospital’—­this was Hiram’s Hospital of which establishment, in the city of Barchester, Mr Harding had once been the warden and kind master, as has been told in former chronicles of the city—­’and your papa has said, ma’am, you know, that he is always to see any of the old men when they come up.  And Skulpit is sly, and no better than he should be, and got money from your father, ma’am, I know.  And then he had just a drop of tea, and after that I took him a glass of port wine with my own hands.  And it touched me, ma’am, so it did, when he said, “Oh, Mrs Baxter, how good you are; you know well what I like.”  And then he went to bed.  I listened hard—­not from idle curiosity, ma’am, as you, who know me, will believe, but just because it’s becoming to know what he’s about, as there might be an accident, you know, ma’am.’  ‘You are very good, Mrs Baxter, very good.’  ’Thank ye, ma’am, for saying so.  And so I listened hard; but he didn’t go to his music, poor gentleman; and I think he had a quiet night.  He doesn’t sleep much at nights, poor gentleman, but he’s very quiet; leastwise he was last night.’  This was the bulletin which Mrs Baxter gave Mrs Grantly on that morning before Mrs Grantly saw her father.

She found him preparing himself for his visit to the cathedral.  Some year or two—­but no more—­before the date of which we are speaking, he had still taken some small part in the service; and while he had done so he had of course worn his surplice.  Living so close to the cathedral—­so close that he could almost walk out of the house into the transept—­he had kept his surplice in his own room, and had gone down in his vestment.  It had been a bitter day to him when he had first found himself constrained to abandon the white garment which he loved.  He had encountered some failure in the performance of the slight clerical task allotted to him, and the dean had tenderly advised him to desist.