let us employ a barrister. However, I shall have one in the
court and say nothing to him about it at all. Good-by, Mr. Harding.
As you say, it would be thousand pities that a clergyman should be
convicted of a theft;--and one so well connected too."

Mr. Harding, when he was left alone, began to turn the matter over
in his mind and to reflect whether the thousand pities of which Mr
Toogood had spoken appertained to the conviction of the criminal,
or the doing of the crime. "If he did steal the money I suppose he
ought to be punished, let him be ever so much a clergyman," said Mr
Harding to himself. But yet,--how terrible it would be! Of clergymen
convicted of fraud in London he had often heard; but nothing of the
kind had ever disgraced the diocese to which he belonged since he had
known it. He could not teach himself to hope that Mr. Crawley should
be acquitted if Mr. Crawley were guilty;--but he could teach himself
to believe that Mr. Crawley was innocent. Something of a doubt had
crept across his mind as he talked to the lawyer. Mr. Toogood, though
Mrs. Crawley was his cousin, seemed to believe that the money had
been stolen; and Mr. Toogood as a lawyer ought to understand such
matters better than an old secluded clergyman in Barchester. But,
nevertheless, Mr. Toogood might be wrong; and Mr. Harding succeeded
in satisfying himself at last that he could not be doing harm in
thinking that Mr. Toogood was wrong. When he had made up his mind on
this matter he sat down and wrote the following letter, which he
addressed to his daughter at the post-office in Florence:--

DEANERY; -- March, 186--

DEAREST NELLY,

When I wrote on Tuesday I told you about poor Mr
Crawley, that he was the clergyman in Barsetshire of
whose misfortune you read an account in _Galignani's
Messenger_,--and I think Susan must have written about it
also, because everybody here is talking of nothing else,
and because, of course, we know how strong a regard the
dean has for Mr. Crawley. But since that something has
occurred which makes me write to you again,--at once. A
gentleman has just been here, and has indeed only this
moment left me, who tells me that he is an attorney in
London, and that he is nearly related to Mrs. Crawley. He
seems to be a very good-natured man, and I daresay he
understands his business as a lawyer. His name is Toogood,
and he has come down as he says to get evidence to h