to it, it would have been madness, he considered, to decline
it. And then, too, Mr. Sowerby's promise about the bills was very
comfortable to him. After all, might it not be possible that he might
get rid of all these troubles with no other drawback than that of
having to pay L130 for a horse that was well worth the money?

On the day after his return he received proper authentic tidings of
his presentation to the prebend. He was, in fact, already prebendary,
or would be as soon as the dean and chapter had gone through the form
of instituting him in his stall. The income was already his own; and
the house also would be given up to him in a week's time--a part of
the arrangement with which he would most willingly have dispensed had
it been at all possible to do so. His wife congratulated him nicely,
with open affection, and apparent satisfaction at the arrangement.
The enjoyment of one's own happiness at such windfalls depends so
much on the free and freely expressed enjoyment of others! Lady
Lufton's congratulations had nearly made him throw up the whole
thing; but his wife's smiles re-encouraged him; and Lucy's warm and
eager joy made him feel quite delighted with Mr. Sowerby and the Duke
of Omnium. And then that splendid animal, Dandy, came home to the
parsonage stables, much to the delight of the groom and gardener,
and of the assistant stable boy who had been allowed to creep into
the establishment, unawares, as it were, since "master" had taken
so keenly to hunting. But this satisfaction was not shared in the
drawing-room. The horse was seen on his first journey round to the
stable gate, and questions were immediately asked. It was a horse,
Mark said, "which he had bought from Mr. Sowerby some little time
since, with the object of obliging him. He, Mark, intended to sell
him again, as soon as he could do so judiciously." This, as I have
said above, was not satisfactory. Neither of the two ladies at
Framley parsonage knew much about horses, or of the manner in which
one gentleman might think it proper to oblige another by purchasing
the superfluities of his stable; but they did both feel that there
were horses enough in the parsonage stable without Dandy, and that
the purchasing of a hunter with a view of immediately selling him
again, was, to say the least of it, an operation hardly congenial
with the usual tastes and pursuits of a clergyman. "I hope you did
not give very much money for him, Mark," said Fanny.

"