that he is too much imbued with the idea that he has a special

mission for reforming. It would be well if one so young had
a little more diffidence himself, and more trust in the honest

purposes of others--if he could be brought to believe that old
customs need not necessarily be evil, and that changes may

possibly be dangerous; but no, Bold has all the ardour and all
the self-assurance of a Danton, and hurls his anathemas against

time-honoured practices with the violence of a French Jacobin.
No wonder that Dr Grantly should regard Bold as a firebrand,

falling, as he has done, almost in the centre of the quiet
ancient close of Barchester Cathedral. Dr Grantly would

have him avoided as the plague; but the old Doctor and Mr
Harding were fast friends. Young Johnny Bold used to play

as a boy on Mr Harding's lawn; he has many a time won the
precentor's heart by listening with rapt attention to his sacred

strains; and since those days, to tell the truth at once, he has
nearly won another heart within the same walls.

Eleanor Harding has not plighted her troth to John Bold,
nor has she, perhaps, owned to herself how dear to her the

young reformer is; but she cannot endure that anyone should
speak harshly of him. She does not dare to defend him when

her brother-in-law is so loud against him; for she, like her
father, is somewhat afraid of Dr Grantly; but she is beginning

greatly to dislike the archdeacon. She persuades her father
that it would be both unjust and injudicious to banish his

young friend because of his politics; she cares little to go to
houses where she will not meet him, and, in fact, she is in love.

Nor is there any good reason why Eleanor Harding should
not love John Bold. He has all those qualities which are likely

to touch a girl's heart. He is brave, eager, and amusing;
well-made and good-looking; young and enterprising; his

character is in all respects good; he has sufficient income to
support a wife; he is her father's friend; and, above all, he

is in love with her: then why should not Eleanor Harding be
attached to John Bold?

Dr Grantly, who has as many eyes as Argus, and has long
seen how the wind blows in that direction, thinks there are

various strong reasons why this should not be so. He has not
thought it wise as yet to speak to his father-in-law on the

subject, for he knows how foolishly indulgent is Mr Harding in
everything that concerns his daughter; but he has discussed the

matter with his all-trusted helpmate, within that sacred recess
formed by the clerical bed-curtains at Plumstead Episcopi.

How much sweet solace, how much valued counsel has our
archdeacon received within that sainted enclosure! 'Tis there

alone that he unbends, and comes down from his high church
pedestal to the level of a mortal man. In the world Dr Grantly

never lays aside that demeanour which so well becomes him.
He has all the dignity of an ancient saint with the sleekness of

a modern bishop; he is always the same; he is always the
archdeacon; unlike Homer, he never nods. Even with his

father-in-law, even with the bishop and dean, he maintains
that sonorous tone and lofty deportment which strikes awe

into the young hearts of Barchester, and absolutely cows the
whole parish of Plumstead Episcopi. 'Tis only when he has

exchanged that ever-new shovel hat for a tasselled nightcap,
and those shining black habiliments for his accustomed robe

de nuit, that Dr Grantly talks, and looks, and thinks like an
ordinary man.

Many of us have often thought how severe a trial of faith
must this be to the wives of our great church dignitaries. To

us these men are personifications of St Paul; their very gait is
a speakingsermon; their clean and sombre apparel exacts

from us faith and submission, and the cardinal virtues seem to
hover round their sacred hats. A dean or archbishop, in the

garb of his order, is sure of our reverence, and a well-got-up
bishop fills our very souls with awe. But how can this feeling

be perpetuated in the bosoms of those who see the bishops
without their aprons, and the archdeacons even in a lower state

of dishabille?
Do we not all know some reverend, all but sacred, personage

before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be
elastic? But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath

the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his
pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor

or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that
our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he

considered himself entitled to give counsel to every other being
whom he met.

'My dear,' he said, as he adjusted the copious folds of his
nightcap, 'there was that John Bold at your father's again

today. I must say your father is very imprudent.'
'He is imprudent--he always was,' replied Mrs Grantly,

speaking from under the comfortable bed-clothes. 'There's
nothing new in that.'

'No, my dear, there's nothing new--I know that; but, at
the present juncture of affairs, such imprudence is--is--I'll

tell you what, my dear, if he does not take care what he's about,
John Bold will be off with Eleanor.'

'I think he will, whether papa takes care or no; and why not?'
'Why not!' almost screamed the archdeacon, giving so

rough a pull at his nightcap as almost to bring it over his nose;
'why not!-that pestilent, interfering upstart, John Bold--the

most vulgar young person I ever met! Do you know that he
is meddling with your father's affairs in a most uncalled-for--

most--' And being at a loss for an epithet sufficiently
injurious, he finished his expressions of horror by muttering,

'Good heavens!' in a manner that had been found very
efficacious in clerical meetings of the diocese. He must for

the moment have forgotten where he was.
'As to his vulgarity, archdeacon' (Mrs Grantly had never

assumed a more familiar term than this in addressing her
husband), 'I don't agree with you. Not that I like Mr Bold

--he is a great deal too conceited for me; but then Eleanor
does, and it would be the best thing in the world for papa if

they were to marry. Bold would never trouble himself about
Hiram's Hospital if he were papa's son-in-law.' And the lady

turned herself round under the bed-clothes, in a manner to
which the doctor was well accustomed, and which told him,

as plainly as words, that as far as she was concerned the subject
was over for that night.

'Good heavens!' murmured the doctor again--he was evidently
much put beside himself.

Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the
man which such an education as his was most likely to form;

his intellect being sufficient for such a place in the world, but
not sufficient to put him in advance of it. He performs with a

rigid constancy such of the duties of a parishclergyman as are,
to his thinking, above the sphere of his curate, but it is as an

archdeacon that he shines.
We believe, as a general rule, that either a bishop or his

archdeacons have sinecures: where a bishop works, archdeacons
have but little to do, and vice versa. In the diocese of

Barchester the Archdeacon of Barchester does the work. In
that capacity he is diligent, authoritative, and, as his friends

particularly boast, judicious. His great fault is an overbearing
assurance of the virtues and claims of his order, and his great

foible is an equally strong confidence in the dignity of his own
manner and the eloquence of his own words. He is a moral