gate, and questions were immediately asked. It was a horse, Mark said, "which he had bought from Mr. Sowerby some little time since with the object of obliging him. He, Mark, intended to sell him again as soon as he could do so judiciously." This, as I have said above, was not satisfactory. Neither of the two ladies at Framley Parsonage knew much about horses, or of the manner in which one gentleman might think it proper to oblige another by purchasing the superfluities of his stable; but they did both feel that there were horses enough in the Parsonage stable without Dandy, and that the purchasing of a hunter with the view of immediately selling him again was, to say the least of it, an operation hardly congenial with the usual tastes and pursuits of a clergyman.
"I hope you did not give very much money for him, Mark," said Fanny.
"Not more than I shall get again," said Mark; and Fanny saw from the form of his countenance that she had better not pursue the subject any farther at that moment.
"I suppose I shall have to go into residence almost immediately," said Mark, recurring to the more agreeable subject of the stall.
"And shall we all have to go and live at Barchester at once?" asked Lucy.
"The house will not be furnished, will it, Mark?" said his wife. "I don't know how we shall get on."
"Don't frighten yourselves. I shall take lodgings in Barchester."
"And we shall not see you all the time," said Mrs. Robarts with dismay. But the prebendary explained that he would be backward and forward at Framley every week, and that, in all probability, he would only sleep at Barchester on the Saturdays and Sundays—and, perhaps, not always then.
"It does not seem very hard work, that of a prebendary," said Lucy.
"But it is very dignified," said Fanny. "Prebendaries are dignitaries of the Church—are they not, Mark?"
"Decidedly," said he; "and their wives also, by special canon law. The worst of it is that both of them are obliged to wear wigs."
"Shall you have a hat, Mark, with curly things at the side, and strings through to hold them up?" asked Lucy.
