you please, Mrs. Baxter,
you shall leave me for little time, and take Miss Posy with you." He
had been in the city of Barchester some fifty years, and here was one
who might have been his daughter, who had come there scarcely ten
years since, and who had now gone before him! He had never loved Mrs
Proudie. Perhaps he had come as near to disliking Mrs. Proudie as he
had ever come to disliking any person. Mrs. Proudie had wounded him
in every part that was most sensitive. It would be long to tell,
nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathedral work,
how she had made nothing of him, how she had despised him, always
manifesting her contempt plainly. He had been even driven to rebuke
her, and it had perhaps been the only personal rebuke which he had
ever uttered in Barchester. But now she was gone; and he thought of
her simply as an active pious woman, who had been taken away from her
work before her time. And for the bishop, no idea ever entered Mr
Harding's mind as to the removal of a thorn. The man had lost his
life's companion at that time of life when such a companion is most
needed; and Mr. Harding grieved for him with sincerity.

The news went out to Plumstead Episcopi by the postman, and happened
to reach the archdeacon as he was talking to his sexton at the little
gate leading into the churchyard. "Mrs. Proudie dead!" he almost
shouted, as the postman notified the fact to him. "Impossible!"

"It be so for zartain, yer reverence," said the postman, who was
proud of his news.

"Heavens!" ejaculated the archdeacon, and then hurried in to his
wife. "My dear," he said--and as he spoke he could hardly deliver
himself of the words, so eager was he to speak them--"who do you
think is dead? Gracious heavens! Mrs. Proudie is dead!" Mrs. Grantly
dropped from her hand the teaspoonful of tea that was just going into
the pot, and repeated her husband's words. "Mrs. Proudie dead?" There
was a pause, during which they looked into each other's faces. "My
dear, I don't believe it," said Mrs. Grantly.

But she did believe it very shortly. There were no prayers at
Plumstead rectory that morning. The archdeacon immediately went out
into the village, and soon obtained sufficient evidence of the truth
of that which the postman had told him. Then he rushed back to his
wife. "It's true," he said. "It's quite true. She's dead. There's no
doubt about that. She's dead. It was last night about seven. That was
when they found