or I remember her before she was
married at all,--when they lived at the hospital--"

"At the hospital?"

"Hiram's hospital, sir. He was warden, you know. You should go and
see the hospital, sir, if you never was there before. Well, Miss
Eleanor,--that was his youngest,--she married Mr Bold as her first.
But now she's the dean's lady."

"Oh; the dean's lady, is she?"

"Yes, indeed. And what do you think, sir? Mr Harding might have been
dean himself if he'd liked. They did offer it to him."

"And he refused it?"

"Indeed he did, sir."

"_Nolo decanari_. I never heard of that before. What made him so
modest?"

"Just that, sir; because he is modest. He's past his seventy
now,--ever so much; but he's just as modest as a young girl. A deal
more modest than some of them. To see him and his granddaughter
together!"

"And who is his granddaughter?"

"Why Lady Dumbello, as will be the Marchioness of Hartletop."

"I know Lady Dumbello," said Crosbie; not meaning, however, to boast
to the verger of his noble acquaintance.

"Oh, do you, sir?" said the man, unconsciously touching his hat at
this sign of greatness in the stranger; though in truth he had no
love for her ladyship. "Perhaps you're going to be one of the party
at Courcy Castle."

"Well, I believe I am."

"You'll find her ladyship there before you. She lunched with her aunt
at the deanery as she went through, yesterday; finding it too much
trouble to go out to her father's, at Plumstead. Her father is the
archdeacon, you know. They do say--but her ladyship is your friend!"

"No friend at all; only a very slight acquaintance. She's quite as
much above my line as she is above her father's."

"Well, she is above them all. They say she would hardly as much as
speak to the old gentleman."

"What, her father?"

"No, Mr Harding; he that chanted the Litany just now. There he is,
sir, coming out of the deanery."

They were now standing at the door leading out from one of the
transepts, and Mr Harding passed them as they were speaking together.
He was a little, withered, shambling old man, with bent shoulders,
dressed in knee-breeches and long black gaiters, which hung rather
loosely about his poor old legs,--rubbing his hands one over the
other as he went. And yet he walked quickly; not tottering as he
walked, but with an uncertain, doubtful step. The verger, as Mr
Harding passed, put his hand to his head, and Crosbie also raised his
hat. Whereupon Mr H