tarted. He was willing, therefore, to go to Plumstead, but
he took no steps as to the withdrawal of those auctioneer's bills to
which the archdeacon so strongly objected. When he drove into the
rectory yard, his father was standing there before him. "Henry," he
said, "I am very glad to see you. I am very much obliged to you for
coming." Then Henry got out of his cart and shook hands with his
father, and the archdeacon began to talk about the weather. "Your
mother has gone into Barchester to see your grandfather," said the
archdeacon. "If you are not tired, we might as well take a walk.
I want to go up as far as Flurry's cottage." The major of course
declared that he was not at all tired, and that he should be
delighted of all things to go up and see old Flurry, and thus they
started. Young Grantly had not even been into the house before he
left the yard with his father. Of course, he was thinking of the
coming sale at Cosby Lodge, and of his future life at Pau, and of his
injured position in the world. There would be no longer any occasion
for him to be solicitous as to the Plumstead foxes. Of course these
things were in his mind; but he could not begin to speak of them till
his father did so. "I'm afraid your grandfather is not very strong,"
said the archdeacon, shaking his head. "I fear he won't be with us
very long."

"Is it so bad as that, sir?"

"Well, you know, he is an old man, Henry; and he was always somewhat
old for his age. He will be eighty, if he lives two years longer, I
think. But he'll never reach eighty;--never. You must go and see him
before you go back home; you must indeed." The major, of course,
promised that he would see his grandfather, and the archdeacon told
his son how nearly the old man had fallen in the passage between the
cathedral and the deanery. In this way they had nearly made their way
up to the gamekeeper's cottage without a word of reference to any
subject that touched upon the matter of which each of them was of
course thinking. Whether the major intended to remain at home or to
live at Pau, the subject of Mr. Harding's health was a natural topic
for conversation between him and his father; but when his father
stopped suddenly, and began to tell him how a fox had been trapped on
Darvell's farm,--"and of course it was a Plumstead fox,--there can
be no doubt that Flurry is right about that;"--when the archdeacon
spoke of this iniquity with much warmth, and told his son how he had
at