He had ceased to covet aught for himself, but still coveted much for his children; and for him such a marriage as this which was now suggested for his son was encompassed almost with the bitterness of death.

"I think it would kill me," he had said to his wife; "by heavens, I think it would be my death!" A daughter of the archdeacon had made a splendid matrimonial alliance,--so splendid that its history was at the time known to all the aristocracy of the county, and had not been altogether forgotten by any of those who keep themselves well instructed in the details of the peerage.

Griselda Grantly had married Lord Dumbello, the eldest son of the Marquis of Hartletop,--than whom no English nobleman was more puissant, if broad acres, many castles, high title, and stars and ribbons are any signs of puissance,--and she was now, herself, Marchioness of Hartletop, with a little Lord Dumbello of her own.

The daughter's visits to the parsonage of her father were of necessity rare, such necessity having come from her own altered sphere of life.
A Marchioness of Hartletop has special duties which will hardly permit her to devote herself frequently to the humdrum society of a clerical father and mother.

That it would be so, father and mother had understood when they sent the fortunate girl forth to a higher world.