ther's lifetime—when he was the greatest man of the Close. The dean had been old and infirm, and Dr. Grantly had wielded the bishop's authority. But, since that, things had altered. A new bishop had come there, absolutely hostile to him. A new dean had also come, who was not only his friend, but the brother-in-law of his wife; but even this advent had lessened the authority of the archdeacon. The vicars choral did not hang upon his words as they had been wont to do, and the minor canons smiled in return to his smile less obsequiously when they met him in the clerical circles of Barchester. But now it seemed that his old supremacy was restored to him. In the minds of many men, an archdeacon, who was the father-in-law of a marquis, was himself as good as any bishop. He did not say much of his new connection to others besides the dean, but he was conscious of the fact, and conscious also of the reflected glory which shone around his own head.
But, as regards Mrs. Grantly, it may be said that she moved in an unending procession of stately ovation. It must not be supposed that she continually talked to her friends and neighbors of Lord Dumbello and the marchioness. She was by far too wise for such folly as that. The coming alliance having been once announced, the name of Hartletop was hardly mentioned by her out of her own domestic circle. But she assumed, with an ease that was surprising even to herself, the airs and graces of a mighty woman. She went through her work of morning calls as though it were her business to be affable to the country gentry. She astonished her sister, the dean's wife, by the simplicity of her grandeur; and condescended to Mrs. Proudie in a manner which nearly broke that lady's heart. "I shall be even with her yet," said Mrs. Proudie to herself, who had contrived to learn various very deleterious circumstances respecting the Hartletop family since the news about Lord Dumbello and Griselda had become known to her.
Griselda herself was carried about in the procession, taking but little part in it of her own, like an Eastern god. She suffered her mother's caresses and smiled in her mother's face as she listened to her own praises, but her triumph was apparently within. To no one did she say much on the subject, and greatly disgusted the old family housekeeper by declining altogether to discuss the future Dum-
