ll what you all think of her, and say of her too, at Framley.
Your friend, Lady Lufton, loves her dearly. I wish I could have been
hidden behind a curtain in the palace, to hear what Mr. Crawley said
to her."

"Mr. Smillie declares," said Miss Prettyman, "that the bishop has been
ill ever since. Mr. Smillie went over to his mother's at Barchester
for Christmas, and took part of the cathedral duty, and we had Mr
Spooner over here in his place. So Mr. Smillie of course heard all
about it. Only fancy, poor Mr. Crawley walking all the way from
Hogglestock to Barchester and back;--and I am told he hardly had a
shoe to his foot! Is it not a shame, Mr. Robarts?"

"I don't think it was quite so bad as you say, Miss Prettyman; but,
upon the whole, I do think it is a shame. But what can we do?"

"I suppose there are tithes at Hogglestock? Why are they not given up
to the church, as they ought to be?"

"My dear Miss Prettyman, that is a very large subject, and I am
afraid it cannot be settled in time to relieve our poor friend from
his distress." Then Mr. Robarts escaped from the ladies in Mr. Walker's
house, who, as it seemed to him, were touching upon dangerous ground,
and went back to the yard of the George Inn for his gig,--the "George
and Vulture" it was properly called, and was the house in which the
magistrates had sat when they committed Mr. Crawley for trial.

"Footed it every inch of the way, blowed if he didn't," the ostler
was saying to a gentleman's groom, whom Mr. Robarts recognised to be
the servant of his friend Major Grantly; and Mr. Robarts knew that
they also were talking about Mr. Crawley. Everybody in the county was
talking about Mr. Crawley. At home, at Framley, there was no other
subject of discourse. Lady Lufton, the dowager, was full of it, being
firmly convinced that Mr. Crawley was innocent, because the bishop was
supposed to regard him as guilty. There had been a family conclave
held at Framley Court over that basket of provisions which had been
sent for the Christmas cheer of the Hogglestock parsonage, each
of the three ladies, the two Lady Luftons and Mrs. Robarts, having
special views of their own. How the pork had been substituted for the
beef by old Lady Lufton, young Lady Lufton thinking that after all
the beef would be less dangerous, and how a small turkey had been
rashly suggested by Mrs. Robarts, and how certain small articles had
been inserted in the bottom of the basket which Mrs. Crawl