her mother's grandfather. Edith, therefore, was all that he had in
that generation, and of Edith he was prepared to be as indulgent as
he had been, in their time, of his grandchildren, the Grantlys, and
still was of his grandchildren the Arabins, and had been before that
of his own daughters. "She's more like Eleanor than any one else,"
said the old man in a plaintive tone. Now Eleanor was Mrs. Arabin, the
dean's wife, and was at this time,--if I were to say over forty I
do not think I should be uncharitable. No one else saw the special
likeness, but no one else remembered, as Mr. Harding did, what Eleanor
had been when she was three years old.

[Illustration: "She's more like Eleanor than any one else."]

"Aunt Nelly is in France," said the child.

"Yes, my darling, aunt Nelly is in France, and I wish she were at
home. Aunt Nelly has been away a long time."

"I suppose she'll stay till the dean picks her up on his way home?"
said Mrs. Grantly.

"So she says in her letters. I heard from her yesterday, and I
brought the letter, as I thought you'd like to see it." Mrs. Grantly
took the letter and read it, while her father still played with the
child. The archdeacon and the major were standing together on the rug
discussing the shooting at Chaldicotes, as to which the archdeacon
had a strong opinion. "I'm quite sure that a man with a place like
that does more good by preserving than by leaving it alone. The
better head of game he has the richer the county will be generally.
It is just the same with pheasants as it is with sheep and bullocks.
A pheasant doesn't cost more than he's worth any more than a
barn-door fowl. Besides, a man who preserves is always respected by
the poachers, and the man who doesn't is not."

"There's something in that, sir, certainly," said the major.

"More than you think for, perhaps. Look at poor Sowerby, who went on
there for years without a shilling. How he was respected, because he
lived as the people around him expected a gentleman to live. Thorne
will have a bad time of it, if he tries to change things."

"Only think," exclaimed Mrs. Grantly, "when Eleanor wrote she had not
heard of that affair of poor Mr. Crawley's."

"Does she say anything about him?" asked the major.

"I'll read what she says. 'I see in _Galignani_ that a clergyman in
Barsetshire has been committed for theft. Pray tell me who it is. Not
the bishop, I hope, for the credit of the diocese?'"

"I wish it were,"