letter was long and eager, and full of repetitions, but it
did explain clearly to them the exact manner in which the cheque had
found its way into Mr. Crawley's hand. "Francis came up to me," she
said in her letter,--Francis being her husband, the dean,--"and
asked me for the money, which I had promised to make up in a packet.
The packet was not ready, and he would not wait, declaring that Mr
Crawley was in such a flurry that he did not like to leave him. I
was therefore to bring it down to the door. I went to my desk, and
thinking that I could spare the twenty pounds as well as the fifty, I
put the cheque into the envelope, together with the notes, and handed
the packet to Francis at the door. I think I told Francis afterwards
that I put seventy pounds into the envelope, instead of fifty, but
of this I will not be sure. _At any rate Mr. Crawley got Mr. Soames's
cheque from me._" These last words she underscored, and then went on
to explain how the cheque had been paid to her a short time before by
Dan Stringer.

"Then Toogood has been right about the fellow," said the archdeacon.

"I hope they'll hang him," said Mrs. Grantly. "He must have known all
the time what dreadful misery he was bringing upon this unfortunate
family."

"I don't suppose Dan Stringer cared much about that," said the major.

"Not a straw," said the archdeacon, and then all hurried off to
church; and the archdeacon preached the sermon in the fabrication of
which he had been interrupted by his son, and which therefore barely
enabled him to turn the quarter of an hour from the giving out of his
text. It was his constant practice to preach for full twenty minutes.

As Barchester lay on the direct road from Plumstead to Hogglestock,
it was thought well that word should be sent to Mr. Toogood, desiring
him not to come out to Plumstead on the Monday morning. Major Grantly
proposed to call for him at "The Dragon", and to take him on from
thence to Hogglestock. "You had better take your mother's horses all
through," said the archdeacon. The distance was very nearly twenty
miles, and it was felt by both the mother and the son, that the
archdeacon must be in a good humour when he made such a proposition
as that. It was not often that the rectory carriage-horses were
allowed to make long journeys. A run into Barchester and back, which
altogether was under ten miles, was generally the extent of their
work. "I meant to have posted from Barchester," said th