Der Praefekt

affection which the warden in all his misery
    could not resist.
     
    He stopped, and took both the old man’s hands in his.  “My friend,”
    said he, “my dear old friend, there is nothing; there is no news to
    cheer me;—God’s will be done”: and two small hot tears broke away
    from his eyes and stole down his furrowed cheeks.
     
    “Then God’s will be done,” said the other solemnly; “but they told
    me that there was good news from London, and I came to wish your
    reverence joy; but God’s will be done;” and so the warden again walked
    on, and the bedesman, looking wistfully after him and receiving no
    encouragement to follow, returned sadly to his own abode.
     
    For a couple of hours the warden remained thus in the garden, now
    walking, now standing motionless on the turf, and then, as his legs
    got weary, sitting unconsciously on the garden seats, and then walking
    wieder. And Eleanor, hidden behind the muslin curtains of the window,
    watched him through the trees as he now came in sight, and then again
    was concealed by the turnings of the walk; and thus the time passed
    away till five, when the warden crept back to the house and prepared
    for dinner.
     
    It was but a sorry meal.  The demure parlour-maid, as she handed the
    dishes and changed the plates, saw that all was not right, and was
    more demure than ever: neither father nor daughter could eat, and the
    hateful food was soon cleared away, and the bottle of port placed upon
    die Tabelle.
     
    “Would you like Bunce to come in, papa?” said Eleanor, thinking that
    the company of the old man might lighten his sorrow.
     
    “No, my dear, thank you, not to-day; but are not you going out,
    Eleanor, this lovely afternoon? don’t stay in for me, my dear.”
     
    “I thought you seemed so sad, papa.”
     
    “Sad,” said he, irritated; “well, people must all have their share of
    sadness here; I am not more exempt than another: but kiss me, dearest,
    and go now; I will, if possible, be more sociable when you return.”
     
    And Eleanor was again banished from her father’s sorrow. Ah! sie
    desire now was not to find him happy, but to be allowed to share his
    sorrows; not to force him to be sociable, but to persuade him to be
    trustful.
     
    She put on her bonnet as desired, and went up to Mary Bold; this was
    now her daily haunt, for John Bold was up in London among lawyers and
    church reformers, diving deep into other questions than that of the
    wardenship of Barchester; supplying information to one member of
    Parliament, and dining with another; subscribing to funds for the
    abolition of clerical incomes, and seconding at that great national
    meeting at the Crown and Anchor a resolution to the effect, that no
    clergyman of the Church of England, be he who he might, should have
    more than a thousand a year, and none less than two hundred and fifty.
    His speech on this occasion was short, for fifteen had to speak, and
    the room was hired for two hours only, at the expiration of which
    the Quakers and Mr Cobden were to make use of it for an appeal to
    the public in aid of the Emperor of Russia; but it was sharp and
    effective; at least he was told so by a companion with whom he now
    lived much, and on whom he greatly depended,—one Tom Towers, a very
    leading genius, and supposed to have high employment on the staff of
    _The Jupiter_.
     
    So Eleanor, as was now her wont, went up to Mary Bold, and Mary
    listened kindly, while the daughter spoke much of her father, and,
    perhaps kinder still, found a listener in Eleanor, while she spoke
    about her brother.  In the meantime the warden sat alone, leaning on
    the arm of his chair; he had poured out a glass of wine, but had done
    so merely from habit, for he left it untouched; there he sat gazing
    at the open window, and thinking, if he can be said to have thought,
    of the happiness of his past life.  All manner of past delights came
    before his mind, which at the time he had enjoyed without considering
    them; his easy days, his absence of all kind of hard work, his
    pleasant shady home, those twelve old neighbours whose welfare till
    now had been the source of so much pleasant care, the excellence
    of his children, the friendship of the dear old bishop, the solemn
    grandeur of those vaulted aisles, through which he loved to hear his
    own voice pealing; and then that friend of friends, that choice ally
    that had never deserted him, that eloquent companion that would
    always, when asked,