prevent so disgraceful an
alliance. It was in vain that Mrs. Grantly assured him that speaking
to Eleanor angrily would only hasten such a crisis and render
it certain, if at present there were any doubt. He was angry,
self-willed, and sore. The fact that a lady of his household had
received a letter from Mr. Slope had wounded his pride in the sorest
place, and nothing could control him.

Mr. Harding looked worn and woe-begone as he entered his daughter's
room. These sorrows worried him sadly. He felt that if they were
continued, he must go to the wall in the manner so kindly prophesied
to him by the chaplain. He knocked gently at his daughter's door,
waited till he was distinctly bade to enter, and then appeared as
though he and not she were the suspected criminal.

Eleanor's arm was soon within his, and she had soon kissed his
forehead and caressed him, not with joyous but with eager love.
"Oh, Papa," she said, "I do so want to speak to you. They have been
talking about me downstairs to-night--don't you know they have, Papa?"

Mr. Harding confessed with a sort of murmur that the archdeacon had
been speaking of her.

"I shall hate Dr. Grantly soon--"

"Oh, my dear!"

"Well, I shall. I cannot help it. He is so uncharitable, so unkind,
so suspicious of everyone that does not worship himself: and then he
is so monstrously arrogant to other people who have a right to their
opinions as well as he has to his own."

"He is an earnest, eager man, my dear, but he never means to be
unkind."

"He is unkind, Papa, most unkind. There, I got that letter from Mr.
Slope before dinner. It was you yourself who gave it to me. There,
pray read it. It is all for you. It should have been addressed to
you. You know how they have been talking about it downstairs. You
know how they behaved to me at dinner. And since dinner Susan has
been preaching to me, till I could not remain in the room with her.
Read it, Papa, and then say whether that is a letter that need make
Dr. Grantly so outrageous."

Mr. Harding took his arm from his daughter's waist and slowly read
the letter. She expected to see his countenance lit with joy as he
learnt that his path back to the hospital was made so smooth; but she
was doomed to disappointment, as had once been the case before on a
somewhat similar occasion. His first feeling was one of unmitigated
disgust that Mr. Slope should have chosen to interfere in his behalf.
He had been anxious to get back to