made without positive words and that an expectant may
be put into the highest state of encouragement, though the great man
on whose breath he hangs may have done no more than whisper that "Mr.
So-and-So is certainly a rising man."

Such a whisper had been made, and was known by those who heard it to
signify that the cures of the diocese of Barchester should not be
taken out of the hands of the archdeacon. The then prime minister
was all in all at Oxford, and had lately passed a night at the house
of the Master of Lazarus. Now the Master of Lazarus--which is, by
the by, in many respects the most comfortable as well as the richest
college at Oxford--was the archdeacon's most intimate friend and most
trusted counsellor. On the occasion of the prime minister's visit,
Dr. Grantly was of course present, and the meeting was very gracious.
On the following morning Dr. Gwynne, the master, told the archdeacon
that in his opinion the thing was settled.

At this time the bishop was quite on his last legs; but the ministry
also were tottering. Dr. Grantly returned from Oxford, happy and
elated, to resume his place in the palace and to continue to perform
for the father the last duties of a son, which, to give him his due,
he performed with more tender care than was to be expected from his
usual somewhat worldly manners.

A month since, the physicians had named four weeks as the outside
period during which breath could be supported within the body of
the dying man. At the end of the month the physicians wondered, and
named another fortnight. The old man lived on wine alone, but at the
end of the fortnight he still lived, and the tidings of the fall of
the ministry became more frequent. Sir Lamda Mewnew and Sir Omicron
Pie, the two great London doctors, now came down for the fifth time
and declared, shaking their learned heads, that another week of
life was impossible; and as they sat down to lunch in the episcopal
dining-room, whispered to the archdeacon their own private knowledge
that the ministry must fall within five days. The son returned to
his father's room and, after administering with his own hands the
sustaining modicum of madeira, sat down by the bedside to calculate
his chances.

The ministry were to be out within five days: his father was to be
dead within--no, he rejected that view of the subject. The ministry
were to be out, and the diocese might probably be vacant at the same
period. There was much doubt as to th