the eldest son; but the major understood it perfectly.  ’There shall be an elysium opened to you, if only you will not do that terrible thing of which you spoke when last you were here.’  The archdeacon uttered no such words as these, and did not even allude to Grace Crawley; but the words were as good as spoken, and had they been spoken ever so plainly the major could not have understood them more clearly.  He was quite awake to the loveliness of the elysium before him.  He had had his moment of anxiety, whether his father would or would not make an elder son of his brother Charles.  The whole thing was now put before him plainly.  Give up Grace Crawley, and you shall share alike with your brother.  Disgrace yourself by marrying her, and you brother shall have everything.  There was the choice, and it was till open to him to take which side he pleased.  Were he never to go near Grace Crawley again no one would blame him, unless it were Miss Prettyman or Mrs Thorne.  ‘Fill your glass, Henry,’ said the archdeacon.  ’You’d better, I tell you, for there is no more of it left.’  Then the major filled his glass and sipped the wine, and swore to himself that he would go down to Allington at once.  What!  Did his father think to bribe him by giving him ’20 port?  He would certainly go down to Allington, and he would tell his mother tomorrow morning, or certainly on the next day, what he was going to do.  ‘Pity it should all be gone; isn’t it, sir?’ said the archdeacon to his father-in-law.  ‘It has lasted my time,’ said Mr Harding, ’and I’m very much obliged to it.  Dear, dear; how well I remember your father giving the order for it!  There were two pipes, and somebody said it was a heady wine.  “If the prebendaries and rectors can’t drink it,” said your father, “the curates will."’

‘Curates indeed!’ said the archdeacon.  ’It’s too good for a bishop, unless it is of the right sort.’

’Your father used to say those things, but with him the poorer the guest the better the cheer.  When he had a few clergymen round him, how he loved to make them happy!’

‘Never talked shop to them—­did he?’ said the archdeacon.

’Not after dinner, at any rate.  Goodness gracious, when one thinks of it!  Do you remember how we used to play cards?’

‘Every night regularly;—­threepenny points, and sixpence on the rubber,’ said the archdeacon.

’Dear, dear!  How things are changed!  And I remember when the clergymen did more of the dancing in Barchester than all the other young men in the city put together.’

’And a good set they were;—­gentlemen every one of them.  It’s well that some of them don’t dance now;—­that is, for the girl’s sake.’

‘I sometimes sit and wonder,’ said Mr Harding, ’whether your father’s spirit ever comes back to the old house and sees the changes—­and if so whether he approves of them.’

‘Approves them!’ said the archdeacon.

’Well;—­yes.  I think he would, upon the whole.  I’m sure of this:  he would not disapprove, because the new ways are changed from his ways.  He never thought himself infallible.  And do you know, my dear, I am not sure that it isn’t all for the best.  I sometimes think that some of us were very idle when we were young.  I was, I know.’