satisfaction.
A close observer, had there been one there, might have seen that his
wife had been quite as useful in the matter as himself. No one knew
better than Mrs. Grantly the appurtenances necessary to a comfortable
house. She did not, however, think it necessary to lay claim to any
of the glory which her lord and master was so ready to appropriate as
his own.

Having gone through their work effectually and systematically, the
party returned to Plumstead well satisfied with their expedition.

CHAPTER XXII

The Thornes of Ullathorne

On the following Sunday Mr. Arabin was to read himself in at his new
church. It was agreed at the rectory that the archdeacon should go
over with him and assist at the reading desk, and that Mr. Harding
should take the archdeacon's duty at Plumstead Church. Mrs. Grantly
had her school and her buns to attend to, and professed that she could
not be spared, but Mrs. Bold was to accompany them. It was further
agreed also that they would lunch at the squire's house and return
home after the afternoon service.

Wilfred Thorne, Esq., of Ullathorne, was the squire of St.
Ewold's--or, rather, the squire of Ullathorne, for the domain of the
modern landlord was of wider notoriety than the fame of the ancient
saint. He was a fair specimen of what that race has come to in our
days which, a century ago, was, as we are told, fairly represented
by Squire Western. If that representation be a true one, few classes
of men can have made faster strides in improvement. Mr. Thorne,
however, was a man possessed of quite a sufficient number of foibles
to lay him open to much ridicule. He was still a bachelor, being
about fifty, and was not a little proud of his person. When living
at home at Ullathorne, there was not much room for such pride, and
there therefore he always looked like a gentleman and like that which
he certainly was, the first man in his parish. But during the month
or six weeks which he annually spent in London, he tried so hard
to look like a great man there also, which he certainly was not,
that he was put down as a fool by many at his club. He was a man of
considerable literary attainment in a certain way and on certain
subjects. His favourite authors were Montaigne and Burton, and he
knew more perhaps than any other man in his own county and the
next to it of the English essayists of the two last centuries. He
possessed complete sets of the Idler, the Spectator, the Tatler,