anxious than another to retain it. I have the well-being of my child to look to. I am too old to miss without some pain the comforts to which I have been used; and I am, as others are, anxious to prove to the world that I have been right, and to uphold the place I have held; but I cannot do it at such a cost as this. I cannot bear this. Could you tell me to do so?" and he appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left his chair, and was now leaning on the warden's arm as he stood on the further side of the table facing the archdeacon. "Could you tell me to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while such things as these are said loudly of me in the world?"
The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but he could not advise him, he could only say, "No, no, you shall be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best yourself. Theophilus, don't advise him, pray don't advise the warden to do anything which is painful."
But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could advise; and he saw that the time had come when it behoved him to do so in a somewhat peremptory manner.
"Why, my lord," he said speaking to his father: and when he called his father 'my lord,' the good old bishop shook in his shoes, for he knew that an evil time was coming. "Why, my lord, there are two ways of giving advice; there is advice that may be good for the present day; and there is advice that may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself to give the former, if it be incompatible with the other."
"No, no, no, I suppose not," said the bishop, reseating himself, and shading his face with his hands. Mr. Harding sat down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon said out his say standing, with his back to the empty fireplace.
