ed beautifully;--as nobody knows better
than you do." Then the archdeacon gave way so far as to promise that
St Ewold's should be offered to Mr. Crawley as soon as Grace Crawley
was in truth engaged to Henry Grantly.

After that, the dean went to the palace. There had never been any
quarrelling between the bishop and the dean, either direct or
indirect;--nor, indeed, had the dean ever quarrelled even with Mrs
Proudie. But he had belonged the anti-Proudie faction. He had been
brought into the diocese by the Grantly interest; and therefore,
during Mrs. Proudie's lifetime, he had always been accounted among
the enemies. There had never been any real intimacy between the
houses. Each house had always been asked to dine with the other
house once a year; but it had been understood that such dinings were
ecclesiastico-official, and not friendly. There had been the same
outside diocesan civility between even the palace and Plumstead. But
now, when the great chieftain of the palace was no more, and the
strength of the palace faction was gone, peace, or perhaps something
more than peace,--amity, perhaps, might be more easily arranged
with the dean than with the archdeacon. In preparation for such
arrangements the bishop had gone to Mr. Harding's funeral.

And now the dean went to the palace at the bishop's behest. He
found his lordship alone, and was received with almost reverential
courtesy. He thought that the bishop was looking wonderfully aged
since he last saw him, but did not perhaps take into account the
absence of clerical sleekness which was incidental to the bishop's
private life in his private room, and perhaps in a certain measure
to his recent great affliction. The dean had been in the habit of
regarding Dr. Proudie as a man almost young for his age,--having
been in the habit of seeing him at his best, clothed in authority,
redolent of the throne, conspicuous as regarded his apron and outward
signs of episcopality. Much of all this was now absent. The bishop,
as he rose to greet the dean, shuffled with his old slippers, and his
hair was not brushed so becomingly as used to be the case when Mrs
Proudie was always near him.

It was necessary that a word should be said by each as to the loss
which the other had suffered. "Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "allow
me to offer you my condolements in regard to the death of that very
excellent clergyman and most worthy gentleman, your father-in-law."

"Thank you, my lord. H