n Eames saw that Mrs
Proudie was dead. "Look at that," said he, taking the paragraph to
Mrs. Arabin; "Mrs. Proudie is dead!" "Mrs. Proudie dead!" she exclaimed.
"Poor woman! Then there will be peace at Barchester!" "I never knew
her very intimately," she afterwards said to her companion, "and I do
not know that I have a right to say that she ever did me an injury.
But I remember well her first coming into Barchester. My sister's
father-in-law, the late bishop, was just dead. He was a mild, kind,
dear old man, whom my father loved beyond all the world, except
his own children. You may suppose we were all a little sad. I was
not specially connected with the cathedral then, except through my
father,"--and Mrs. Arabin, as she told all this, remembered that
in the days of which she was speaking she was a young mourning
widow,--"but I think I can never forget the sort of harsh-toned paean
of low-church trumpets with which that poor woman made her entry into
the city. She might have been more lenient, as we had never sinned by
being very high. She might, at any rate, have been more gentle with
us at first. I think we had never attempted much beyond decency,
good-will and comfort. Our comfort she utterly destroyed. Good-will
was not to her taste. And as for decency, when I remember some
things, I must say that when the comfort and good-will went, the
decency went along with them. And now she is dead! I wonder how the
bishop will get on without her."

"Like a house on fire, I should think," said Johnny.

"Fie, Mr. Eames; you shouldn't speak in such a way on such a subject."

Mrs. Arabin and Johnny became fast friends as they journeyed home.
There was a sweetness in his character which endeared him readily
to women; though, as we have seen, there was a want of something to
make one woman cling to him. He could be soft and pleasant-mannered.
He was fond of making himself useful, and was a perfect master of
all those little caressing modes of behaviour in which the caress
is quite impalpable, and of which most women know the value and
appreciate the comfort. By the time that they had reached Paris John
had told the whole story of Lily Dale and Crosbie, and Mrs. Arabin had
promised to assist him, if any assistance might be in her power.

"Of course I have heard of Miss Dale," she said, "because we know the
De Courcys." Then she turned away her face, almost blushing, as she
remembered the first time that she had seen that Lady Al