others, who had a right on that account to be
indignant with him? He was unlike other men in other things; and
especially unlike other men in being the eldest son of the Marquess
of Hartletop. It would be all very well for Tickler to proclaim his
whereabouts from week to week; but the eldest son of a marquess might
find it inconvenient to be so precise! Nevertheless the archdeacon
thought it only prudent to go up to London. "Susan," said the
archdeacon to his wife, just as he was starting;--at this moment
neither of them were in the happiest spirits--"I think I would say a
word of caution to Griselda."

"Do you feel so much doubt about it as that?" said Mrs. Grantly. But
even she did not dare to put a direct negative to this proposal, so
much had she been moved by what she had heard!

"I think I would do so, not frightening her more than I could help.
It will lesson the blow if it be that the blow is to fall."

"It will kill me," said Mrs. Grantly; "but I think that she will be
able to bear it." On the next morning Mrs. Grantly, with much cunning
preparation, went about the task which her husband had left her to
perform. It took her long to do, for she was very cunning in the
doing of it; but at last it dropped from her in words that there was
a possibility--a bare possibility--that some disappointment might
even yet be in store for them.

"Do you mean, mamma, that the marriage will be put off?"

"I don't mean to say that I think it will; God forbid! but it is just
possible. I dare say that I am very wrong to tell you this, but I
know that you have sense enough to bear it. Papa has gone to London,
and we shall hear from him soon."

"Then, mamma, I had better give them orders not to go on with the
marking."

CHAPTER XLVI

Lady Lufton's Request

The bailiffs on that day had their meals regular--and their beer,
which state of things, together with an absence of all duty in the
way of making inventories and the like, I take to be the earthly
paradise of bailiffs; and on the next morning they walked off with
civil speeches and many apologies as to their intrusion. "They was
very sorry," they said, "to have troubled a gen'leman as were a
gen'leman, but in their way of business what could they do?" To
which one of them added a remark that, "business is business." This
statement I am not prepared to contradict, but I would recommend all
men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology
a