Having agreed to overlook such
offences as these, why should she not in time be taught to regard Mr.
Slope as a suitor?

And as to him, it must also be affirmed that he was hitherto equally
innocent of the crime imputed to him. How it had come to pass that a
man whose eyes were generally so widely open to everything around him
had not perceived that this young widow was rich as well as beautiful,
cannot probably now be explained. But such was the fact. Mr. Slope
had ingratiated himself with Mrs. Bold, merely as he had done
with other ladies, in order to strengthen his party in the city.
He subsequently amended his error, but it was not till after the
interview between him and Mr. Harding.

CHAPTER XIV

The New Champion

The archdeacon did not return to the parsonage till close upon the
hour of dinner, and there was therefore no time to discuss matters
before that important ceremony. He seemed to be in an especial
good humour, and welcomed his father-in-law with a sort of jovial
earnestness that was usual with him when things on which he was
intent were going on as he would have them.

"It's all settled, my dear," said he to his wife as he washed his
hands in his dressing-room, while she, according to her wont, sat
listening in the bedroom; "Arabin has agreed to accept the living.
He'll be here next week." And the archdeacon scrubbed his hands and
rubbed his face with a violent alacrity, which showed that Arabin's
coming was a great point gained.

"Will he come here to Plumstead?" said the wife.

"He has promised to stay a month with us," said the archdeacon,
"so that he may see what his parish is like. You'll like Arabin very
much. He's a gentleman in every respect, and full of humour."

"He's very queer, isn't he?" asked the lady.

"Well--he is a little odd in some of his fancies, but there's nothing
about him you won't like. He is as staunch a churchman as there is
at Oxford. I really don't know what we should do without Arabin.
It's a great thing for me to have him so near me, and if anything can
put Slope down, Arabin will do it."

The Reverend Francis Arabin was a fellow of Lazarus, the favoured
disciple of the great Dr. Gwynne, a High Churchman at all points--so
high, indeed, that at one period of his career he had all but toppled
over into the cesspool of Rome--a poet and also a polemical writer,
a great pet in the common-rooms at Oxford, an eloquent clergyman,
a droll, odd, humorous, energe