ne, who had
just caught the name during her whisperings with Eleanor. "And such
a nice shop as there used to be in that very house before he came.
Wilfred, don't you remember what good things old Ambleoff used to
have?"

"There have been three men since Ambleoff's time," said the
archdeacon, "and each as bad as the other. But who gets it for you
at Bristol, Thorne?"

"I ran up myself this year and bought it out of the ship. I am
afraid as the evenings get shorter, Mr. Arabin, you'll find the
reading-desk too dark. I must send a fellow with an axe and make him
lop off some of those branches."

Mr. Arabin declared that the morning light at any rate was perfect,
and deprecated any interference with the lime-trees. And then they
took a stroll out among the trim parterres, and Mr. Arabin explained
to Mrs. Bold the difference between a naiad and a dryad, and dilated
on vases and the shapes of urns. Miss Thorne busied herself among
her pansies, and her brother, finding it quite impracticable to give
anything of a peculiarly Sunday tone to the conversation, abandoned
the attempt and had it out with the archdeacon about the Bristol
guano.

At three o'clock they again went into church, and now Mr. Arabin read
the service and the archdeacon preached. Nearly the same congregation
was present, with some adventurous pedestrians from the city, who had
not thought the heat of the midday August sun too great to deter them.
The archdeacon took his text from the epistle to Philemon. "I beseech
thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds." From
such a text it may be imagined the kind of sermon which Dr. Grantly
preached, and on the whole it was neither dull, nor bad, nor out of
place.

He told them that it had become his duty to look about for a pastor
for them, to supply the place of one who had been long among them,
and that in this manner he regarded as a son him whom he had
selected, as St. Paul had regarded the young disciple whom he sent
forth. Then he took a little merit to himself for having studiously
provided the best man he could without reference to patronage or
favour; but he did not say that the best man according to his
views was he who was best able to subdue Mr. Slope, and make that
gentleman's situation in Barchester too hot to be comfortable. As to
the bonds, they had consisted in the exceeding struggle which he had
made to get a good clergyman for them. He deprecated any comparison
between himsel