g an old dog tricks.' I must decline the
Sunday-school, and shall therefore probably decline the hospital also.
But I will first see your brother-in-law." So he took up his hat,
kissed the baby, and withdrew, leaving Eleanor in as low spirits as
himself.

All this was a great aggravation to his misery. He had so few with
whom to sympathize that he could not afford to be cut off from the
one whose sympathy was of the most value to him. And yet it seemed
probable that this would be the case. He did not own to himself that
he wished his daughter to hate Mr. Slope, yet had she expressed such
a feeling there would have been very little bitterness in the rebuke
he would have given her for so uncharitable a state of mind. The
fact, however, was that she was on friendly terms with Mr. Slope,
that she coincided with his views, adhered at once to his plans, and
listened with delight to his teaching. Mr. Harding hardly wished his
daughter to hate the man, but he would have preferred that to her
loving him.

He walked away to the inn to order a fly, went home to put up his
carpet-bag, and then started for Plumstead. There was, at any rate,
no danger that the archdeacon would fraternize with Mr. Slope;
but then he would recommend internecine war, public appeals, loud
reproaches, and all the paraphernalia of open battle. Now that
alternative was hardly more to Mr. Harding's taste than the other.

When Mr. Harding reached the parsonage, he found that the archdeacon
was out, and would not be home till dinnertime, so he began his
complaint to his elder daughter. Mrs. Grantly entertained quite as
strong an antagonism to Mr. Slope as did her husband; she was also
quite as alive to the necessity of combating the Proudie faction, of
supporting the old church interest of the close, of keeping in her
own set such of the loaves and fishes as duly belonged to it; and
was quite as well prepared as her lord to carry on the battle
without giving or taking quarter. Not that she was a woman prone
to quarrelling, or ill-inclined to live at peace with her clerical
neighbours; but she felt, as did the archdeacon, that the presence
of Mr. Slope in Barchester was an insult to everyone connected with
the late bishop, and that his assumed dominion in the diocese was a
spiritual injury to her husband. Hitherto people had little guessed
how bitter Mrs. Grantly could be. She lived on the best of terms
with all the rectors' wives around her. She had been p