good, but of such blessings the English world for the present had enough. And therefore Lord Brock and the gods had had much fear as to their little project.
But now, immediately on the accession of the giants, it was known that the bishop bill was to be gone on with immediately. Some small changes would be effected, so that the bill should be gigantic rather than divine; but the result would be altogether the same. It must, however, be admitted that bishops appointed by ourselves may be very good things, whereas those appointed by our adversaries will be any thing but good. And, no doubt, this feeling went a long way with the giants. Be that as it may, the new bishop bill was to be their first work of government, and it was to be brought forward and carried, and the new prelates selected and put into their chairs all at once—before the grouse should begin to crow, and put an end to the doings of gods as well as giants.
Among other minor effects arising from this decision was the following, that Archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly returned to London, and again took the lodgings in which they had before been staying. On various occasions, also, during the first week of this second sojourn, Dr. Grantly might be seen entering the official chambers of the First Lord of the Treasury. Much counsel was necessary among high churchmen of great repute before any fixed resolution could wisely be made in such a matter as this, and few churchmen stood in higher repute than the Archdeacon of Barchester. And then it began to be rumored in the world that the minister had disposed at any rate of the see of Westminster.
This present time was a very nervous one for Mrs. Grantly. What might be the aspirations of the archdeacon himself we will not stop to inquire. It may be that time and experience had taught him the futility of earthly honors, and made him content with the comfortable opulence of his Barsetshire rectory. But there is no theory of Church discipline which makes it necessary that a clergyman's wife should have an objection to a bishopric. The archdeacon probably was only anxious to give a disinterested aid to the minister; but Mrs. Grantly did long to sit in high places, and be, at any rate, equal to Mrs. Proudie. It was for her children, she said to herself, that she was thus anxious—that they should have a good position before the
