her ear as they left the drawing-room together. So she led the
way into her own sitting-room, telling him, as she asked him to
be seated, that she had supposed that something special must have
brought him over to Framley. "I should have asked you to come up
here, even if you had not spoken," she said.

"Then perhaps you know what has brought me over?" said the
archdeacon.

"Not in the least," said Lady Lufton. "I have not an idea. But I did
not flatter myself that you would come so far on a morning call, to
see us three ladies. I hope you did not want to see Ludovic, because
he will not be back till to-morrow."

"I wanted to see you, Lady Lufton."

"That is lucky, as here I am. You may be pretty sure to find me here
any day in the year."

After this there was a little pause. The archdeacon hardly knew how
to begin his story. In the first place he was in doubt whether Lady
Lufton had ever heard of the preposterous match which his son had
proposed to himself to make. In his anger at Plumstead he had felt
sure that she knew all about it, and that she was assisting his son.
But this belief had dwindled as his anger had dwindled; and as the
chaise had entered the parish of Framley he had told himself that
it was quite impossible that she should know anything about it. Her
manner had certainly been altogether in her favour since he had been
in her house. There had been nothing of the consciousness of guilt in
her demeanour. But, nevertheless, there was the coincidence! How had
it come to pass that Grace Crawley and his son should be at Framley
together? It might, indeed, be just possible that Flurry might have
been wrong, and that his son had not been there at all.

"I suppose Miss Crawley is at the parsonage?" he said at last.

"Oh, yes; she is still there, and will remain there I should think
for the next ten days."

"Oh; I did not know," said the archdeacon very coldly.

It seemed to Lady Lufton, who was as innocent as an unborn babe in
the matter of the projected marriage, that her old friend was in a
mind to persecute the Crawleys. He had on a former occasion taken
upon himself to advise that Grace Crawley should not be entertained
at Framley, and now it seemed that he had come all the way from
Plumstead to say something further in the same strain. Lady Lufton,
if he had anything further to say of that kind, would listen to him
as a matter of course. She would listen to him and reply to him
without temper. B