her intention of giving
up her tour. In telling her father of this she had not said that
her altered purpose had arisen from her disinclination to leave him
alone;--but he had perceived that it was so, and had then consented
to be taken over to Plumstead. There was nothing, he said, which
he would like so much as going over to Plumstead for four or five
months. It had ended in his having his own way altogether. The
Arabins had gone upon their tour, and he was left in possession of
the deanery. "I should not like to die out of Barchester," he said to
himself in excuse to himself for his disinclination to sojourn long
under the archdeacon's roof. But, in truth, the archdeacon, who loved
him well and who, after a fashion, had always been good to him,--who
had always spoken of the connexion which had bound the two families
together as the great blessing of his life,--was too rough in his
greetings for the old man. Mr. Harding had ever mixed something of
fear with his warm affection for his elder son-in-law, and now in
these closing hours of his life he could not avoid a certain amount
of shrinking from that loud voice,--a certain inaptitude to be quite
at ease in that commanding presence. The dean, his second son-in-law,
had been a modern friend in comparison with the archdeacon; but the
dean was more gentle with him; and then the dean's wife had ever been
the dearest to him of human beings. It may be a doubt whether one
of the dean's children was not now almost more dear, and whether in
these days he did not have more free communication with that little
girl than with any other human being. Her name was Susan, but he
had always called her Posy, having himself invented for her that
soubriquet. When it had been proposed to him to pass the winter and
spring at Plumstead, the suggestion had been made alluring by a
promise that Posy also should be taken to Mrs. Grantly's house. But
he, as we have seen, had remained at the deanery, and Posy had
remained with him.

Posy was now five years old, and could talk well, and had her own
ideas of things. Posy's eyes,--hers, and no others besides her
own,--were allowed to see the inhabitant of the big black case; and
now that the deanery was so nearly deserted, Posy's fingers had
touched the strings and had produced an infantine moan. "Grandpa, let
me do it again." Twang! It was not, however, in truth, a twang, but
a sound as of a prolonged dull, almost deadly, hum-m-m-m-m! On this
occ