t the biggest pair of boots in Barchester before I
found him guilty. I say, Mark, you must talk it over with the women,
and see what can be done for them. Lucy tells me that they're so
poor, that if they have bread to eat, it's as much as they have."

On this evening Archdeacon Grantly and his wife dined and slept at
Framley Court, there having been a very long family friendship
between old Lady Lufton and the Grantlys, and Dr. Thorne with his
wife, from Chaldicotes, also dined at Framley. There was also there
another clergyman from Barchester, Mr. Champion, one of the prebends
of the cathedral. There were only three now who had houses in the
city since the retrenchments of the ecclesiastical commission had
come into full force. And this Mr. Champion was dear to the Dowager
Lady Lufton, because he carried on worthily the clerical war against
the bishop which had raged in Barchester ever since Dr. Proudie had
come there,--which war old Lady Lufton, good and pious and charitable
as she was, considered that she was bound to keep up, even to the
knife, till Dr. Proudie and all his satellites should have been
banished into outer darkness. As the light of the Proudies still
shone brightly, it was probable that poor old Lady Lufton might die
before her battle was accomplished. She often said that it would be
so, but when so saying, always expressed a wish that the fight might
be carried on after her death. "I shall never, never rest in my
grave," she had once said to the archdeacon, "while that woman sits
in your father's palace." For the archdeacon's father had been Bishop
of Barchester before Dr. Proudie. What mode of getting rid of the
bishop or his wife Lady Lufton proposed to herself, I am unable to
say; but I think she lived in hopes that in some way it might be
done. If only the bishop could have been found to have stolen a
cheque for twenty pounds instead of poor Mr. Crawley, Lady Lufton
would, I think, have been satisfied.

In the course of these battles Framley Court would sometimes assume
a clerical aspect,--having a prevailing hue, as it were, of black
coats, which was not altogether to the taste of Lord Lufton, and as
to which he would make complaint to his wife, and to Mark Robarts,
himself a clergyman. "There's more of this than I can stand," he'd
say to the latter. "There's a deuced deal more of it than you like
yourself, I know."

"It's not for me to like or dislike. It's a great thing having your
mother i