Der Praefekt

would
    not be able to undo what he had done.  He knew too well the doctor’s
    strength and his own weakness to suppose he could do this, if they
    both reached London together; indeed, he would never be able to get to
    London, if the doctor knew of his intended journey in time to prevent
    es.
     
    “No, I think not,” said he.  “I think I shall start before the
    archdeacon could be ready;—I shall go early to-morrow morning.”
     
    “That will be best, papa,” said Eleanor, showing that her father’s
    ruse was appreciated.
     
    “Why yes, my love.  The fact is, I wish to do all this before the
    archdeacon can—can interfere.  There is a great deal of truth in
    all he says;—he argues very well, and I can’t always answer him;
    but there is an old saying, Nelly: ‘Everyone knows where his own
    shoe pinches!’  He’ll say that I want moral courage, and strength of
    character, and power of endurance, and it’s all true; but I’m sure I
    ought not to remain here, if I have nothing better to put forward than
    a quibble: so, Nelly, we shall have to leave this pretty place.”
     
    Eleanor’s face brightened up, as she assured her father how cordially
    she agreed with him.
     
    “True, my love,” said he, now again quite happy and at ease in his
    Weise. “What good to us is this place or all the money, if we are to
    be ill-spoken of?”
     
    “Oh, papa, I am so glad!”
     
    “My darling child!  It did cost me a pang at first, Nelly, to think
    that you should lose your pretty drawing-room, and your ponies, and
    your garden: the garden will be the worst of all;—but there is a
    garden at Crabtree, a very pretty garden.”
     
    Crabtree Parva was the name of the small living which Mr Harding had
    held as a minor canon, and which still belonged to him. Erst
    worth some eighty pounds a year, and a small house and glebe, all
    of which were now handed over to Mr Harding’s curate; but it was to
    Crabtree glebe that Mr Harding thought of retiring.  This parish must
    not be mistaken for that other living, Crabtree Canonicorum, as it is
    called.  Crabtree Canonicorum is a very nice thing; there are only two
    hundred parishioners; there are four hundred acres of glebe; and the
    great and small tithes, which both go to the rector, are worth four
    hundred pounds a year more.  Crabtree Canonicorum is in the gift of
    the dean and chapter, and is at this time possessed by the Honourable
    and Reverend Dr Vesey Stanhope, who also fills the prebendal stall
    of Goosegorge in Barchester Chapter, and holds the united rectory of
    Eiderdown and Stogpingum, or Stoke Pinquium, as it should be written.
    This is the same Dr Vesey Stanhope whose hospitable villa on the Lake
    of Como is so well known to the _élite_ of English travellers, and
    whose collection of Lombard butterflies is supposed to be unique.
     
    “Yes,” said the warden, musing, “there is a very pretty garden at
    Crabtree;—but I shall be sorry to disturb poor Smith.” Smith was the
    curate of Crabtree, a gentleman who was maintaining a wife and half a
    dozen children on the income arising from his profession.
     
    Eleanor assured her father that, as far as she was concerned, she
    could leave her house and her ponies without a single regret. Sie war
    only so happy that he was going—going where he would escape all this
    dreadful turmoil.
     
    “But we will take the music, my dear.”
     
    And so they went on planning their future happiness, and plotting how
    they would arrange it all without the interposition of the archdeacon,
    and at last they again became confidential, and then the warden did
    thank her for what she had done, and Eleanor, lying on her father’s
    shoulder, did find an opportunity to tell her secret: and the father
    gave his blessing to his child, and said that the man whom she
    loved was honest, good, and kind-hearted, and right-thinking in the
    main,—one who wanted only a good wife to put him quite upright,—“a
    man, my love,” he ended by saying, “to whom I firmly believe that I
    can trust my treasure with safety.”
     
    “But what will Dr Grantly say?”
     
    “Well, my dear, it can’t be helped;—we shall be out at Crabtree
    dann. “
     
    And Eleanor ran upstairs to prepare her father’s clothes for his
    journey; and the warden returned to his garden to make his last adieux
    to every tree, and shrub, and shady nook that he knew so well.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter XIV
     
    MOUNT OLYMPUS
     
     
    Wretched in