indeed who should expect, or even accept, so much more than was her due;—­but nevertheless he could not bring himself to believe that any girl, when so tempted, would, in sincerity, decline to commit this great wickedness.  If he was to do any good by seeing Miss Crawley, must it not consist in a proper explanation to her of the selfishness, abomination, and altogether damnable blackness of such wickedness as this on the part of a young woman in her circumstances?  ’Heaven and earth!’ he must say, ’here are you, without a penny in your pocket, with hardly decent raiment on your back, with a thief for your father, and you think that you are to come and share all the wealth that the Grantlys have amassed, that you are to have a husband with broad acres, a big house, and game preserves, and become one of a family whose name has never been touched by a single accusation—­no, not a suspicion?  No;—­injustice such as that shall never be done betwixt you and me.  You may wring my heart, and you may ruin my son; but the broad acres and the big house, and the game preserves, and the rest of it, shall never be your reward for doing do.’  How was all that to be told effectively to a young woman in gentle words?  And then how was a man in the archdeacon’s position to be desirous of gentle words—­gentle words which would not be efficient—­when he knew well in his heart of hearts that he had nothing but threats on which to depend.  He had no more power of disinheriting his own son for such an offence as that contemplated than he had of blowing out his own brains, and he knew that it was so.  He was a man incapable of such persistency of wrath against one whom he loved.  He was neither cruel enough nor strong enough to do such a thing.  He could only threaten to do it, and make what best use he might have of threats, whilst threats might be of avail.  In spite of all that he had said to his wife, to Lady Lufton, and to himself, he knew very well that if his son did sin in this way he, the father, would forgive the sin of the son.

In going across from the front gate of the Court to the parsonage there was a place where three roads met, and on this spot there stood a finger-post.  Round this finger-post there was now pasted a placard, which at once arrested the archdeacon’s eye:—­’Cosby Lodge—­Sale of furniture—­Growing crops to be sold on the grounds.  Three hunters.  A brown gelding warranted for saddle or harness!’—­The archdeacon himself had given the brown gelding to his son, as a great treasure.—­’Three Alderney cows, two cow-calves, a low phaeton, a gig, two ricks of hay.’  In this fashion were proclaimed in odious details all those comfortable additions to a gentleman’s house in the country, with which the archdeacon was so well acquainted.  Only last November he had recommended his son to buy a certain clod-crusher, and the clod-crusher had of course been bought.  The bright blue paint upon it had as yet not given way to the stains of ordinary