ger-post there was now pasted a placard,
which at once arrested the archdeacon's eye:--"Cosby Lodge--Sale of
furniture--Growing crops to be sold on the grounds. Three hunters.
A brown gelding warranted for saddle or harness!"--The archdeacon
himself had given the brown gelding to his son, as a great
treasure.--"Three Alderney cows, two cow-calves, a low phaeton, a
gig, two ricks of hay." In this fashion were proclaimed in odious
details all those comfortable additions to a gentleman's house in the
country, with which the archdeacon was so well acquainted. Only last
November he had recommended his son to buy a certain clod-crusher,
and the clod-crusher had of course been bought. The bright blue
paint upon it had as yet not given way to the stains of the ordinary
farmyard muck and mire;--and here was the clod-crusher advertised for
sale! The archdeacon did not want his son to leave Cosby Lodge. He
knew well enough that his son need not leave Cosby Lodge. Why had the
foolish fellow been in such a hurry with his hideous ill-conditioned
advertisements? Gentle! How was he in such circumstances to be
gentle? He raised his umbrella and poked angrily at the disgusting
notice. The iron ferrule caught the paper at a chink in the post, and
tore it from the top to the bottom. But what was the use? A horrid
ugly bill lying torn in such a spot would attract only more attention
than one fixed to a post. He could not condescend, however, to give
it further attention, but passed on to the parsonage. Gentle indeed!

Nevertheless Archdeacon Grantly was a gentleman, and never yet had
dealt more harshly with any woman than we have sometimes seen him to
do with his wife,--when he would say to her an angry word or two with
a good deal of marital authority. His wife, who knew well what his
angry words were worth, never even suggested to herself that she had
cause for complaint on that head. Had she known that the archdeacon
was about to undertake such a mission as this which he had now in
hand, she would not have warned him to be gentle. She, indeed, would
have strongly advised him not to undertake the mission, cautioning
him that the young lady would probably get the better of him.

"Grace, my dear," said Mrs. Robarts, coming up into the nursery in
which Miss Crawley was sitting with the children, "come out here a
moment, will you?" Then Grace left the children and went out into the
passage. "My dear, there is a gentleman in the drawing-room