and cried and laughed as the hopes and fears and miseries of
the last few weeks passed in remembrance through her mind.

Mr. Slope! That anyone should have dared to think that she who had
been chosen by him could possibly have mated herself with Mr. Slope!
That they should have dared to tell him, also, and subject her bright
happiness to such needless risk! And then she smiled with joy as she
thought of all the comforts that she could give him--not that he cared
for comforts, but that it would be so delicious for her to give.

She got up and rang for her maid that she might tell her little boy of
his new father, and in her own way she did tell him. She desired her
maid to leave her, in order that she might be alone with her child;
and then, while he lay sprawling on the bed, she poured forth the
praises, all unmeaning to him, of the man she had selected to guard
his infancy.

She could not be happy, however, till she had made Mr. Arabin take
the child to himself and thus, as it were, adopt him as his own. The
moment the idea struck her she took the baby up in her arms and,
opening her door, ran quickly down to the drawing-room. She at once
found, by his step still pacing on the floor, that he was there, and
a glance within the room told her that he was alone. She hesitated a
moment and then hurried in with her precious charge.

Mr. Arabin met her in the middle of the room. "There," said she,
breathless with her haste; "there, take him--take him, and love him."

Mr. Arabin took the little fellow from her and, kissing him again and
again, prayed God to bless him. "He shall be all as my own--all as
my own," said he. Eleanor, as she stooped to take back her child,
kissed the hand that held him and then rushed back with her treasure
to her chamber.

It was thus that Mr. Harding's younger daughter was won for the second
time. At dinner neither she nor Mr. Arabin were very bright, but their
silence occasioned no remark. In the drawing-room, as we have before
said, she told Miss Thorne what had occurred. The next morning she
returned to Barchester, and Mr. Arabin went over with his budget of
news to the archdeacon. As Doctor Grantly was not there, he could only
satisfy himself by telling Mrs. Grantly how that he intended himself
the honour of becoming her brother-in-law. In the ecstasy of her joy
at hearing such tidings Mrs. Grantly vouchsafed him a warmer welcome
than any he had yet received from Eleanor.

"Good heaven