e has a right to correspond with whom
she pleases, and I shall not take upon myself to blame her because
she gets a letter from Mr. Slope."

"I suppose," said Dr. Grantly, "you don't wish her to marry the man.
I suppose you'll admit that she would disgrace herself if she did do
so."

"I do not wish her to marry him," said the perplexed father. "I do
not like him, and do not think he would make a good husband. But
if Eleanor chooses to do so, I shall certainly not think that she
disgraces herself."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Dr. Grantly and threw himself back into the
corner of his brougham. Mr. Harding said nothing more, but commenced
playing a dirge with an imaginary fiddle bow upon an imaginary
violoncello, for which there did not appear to be quite room enough
in the carriage; he continued the tune, with sundry variations, till
he arrived at the rectory door.

The archdeacon had been meditating sad things in his mind. Hitherto
he had always looked on his father-in-law as a true partisan, though
he knew him to be a man devoid of all the combative qualifications
for that character. He had felt no fear that Mr. Harding would go
over to the enemy, though he had never counted much on the ex-warden's
prowess in breaking the hostile ranks. Now, however, it seemed that
Eleanor, with her wiles, had completely trepanned and bewildered
her father, cheated him out of his judgement, robbed him of the
predilections and tastes of his life, and caused him to be tolerant
of a man whose arrogance and vulgarity would, a few years since, have
been unendurable to him. That the whole thing was as good as arranged
between Eleanor and Mr. Slope there was no longer any room to doubt.
That Mr. Harding knew that such was the case, even this could hardly
be doubted. It was too manifest that he at any rate suspected it and
was prepared to sanction it.

And to tell the truth, such was the case. Mr. Harding disliked
Mr. Slope as much as it was in his nature to dislike any man. Had
his daughter wished to do her worst to displease him by a second
marriage, she could hardly have succeeded better than by marrying
Mr. Slope. But, as he said to himself now very often, what right had
he to condemn her if she did nothing that was really wrong? If she
liked Mr. Slope, it was her affair. It was indeed miraculous to him
that a woman with such a mind, so educated, so refined, so nice in
her tastes, should like such a man. Then he asked himself whether