ley; but the words
were as good as spoken, and had they been spoken ever so plainly the
major could not have understood them more clearly. He was quite awake
to the loveliness of the elysium opened before him. He had had his
moment of anxiety, whether his father would or would not make an
elder son of his brother Charles. The whole thing was now put before
him plainly. Give up Grace Crawley, and you shall share alike with
your brother. Disgrace yourself by marrying her, and your brother
shall have everything. There was the choice, and it was still open
to him to take which side he pleased. Were he never to go near Grace
Crawley again no one would blame him, unless it were Miss Prettyman
or Mrs. Thorne. "Fill your glass, Henry," said the archdeacon. "You'd
better, I tell you, for there is no more of it left." Then the major
filled his glass and sipped the wine, and swore to himself that
he would go down to Allington at once. What! Did his father think
to bribe him by giving him '20 port? He would certainly go down
to Allington, and he would tell his mother to-morrow morning,
or certainly on the next day, what he was going to do. "Pity it
should all be gone; isn't it, sir?" said the archdeacon to his
father-in-law. "It has lasted my time," said Mr. Harding, "and I'm
very much obliged to it. Dear, dear; how well I remember your father
giving the order for it! There were two pipes, and somebody said it
was a heady wine. 'If the prebendaries and rectors can't drink it,'
said your father, 'the curates will.'"

"Curates indeed!" said the archdeacon. "It's too good for a bishop,
unless one of the right sort."

"Your father used to say those things, but with him the poorer the
guest the better the cheer. When he had a few clergymen round him,
how he loved to make them happy!"

"Never talked shop to them,--did he?" said the archdeacon.

"Not after dinner, at any rate. Goodness gracious, when one thinks of
it! Do you remember how we used to play cards?"

"Every night regularly;--threepenny points, and sixpence on the
rubber," said the archdeacon.

"Dear, dear! How things are changed! And I remember when the
clergymen did more of the dancing in Barchester than all the other
young men in the city put together."

"And a good set they were;--gentlemen every one of them. It's well
that some of them don't dance now;--that is, for the girls' sake."

"I sometimes sit and wonder," said Mr. Harding, "whether your father's
spirit