On the day after his return he received proper authentic tidings of his presentation to the prebend. He was, in fact, already prebendary, or would be as soon as the dean and chapter had gone through the form of instituting him in his stall. The income was already his own; and the house also would be given up to him in a week’s time—a part of the arrangement with which he would most willingly have dispensed had it been at all possible to do so. His wife congratulated him nicely, with open affection, and apparent satisfaction at the arrangement. The enjoyment of one’s own happiness at such windfalls depends so much on the free and freely expressed enjoyment of others! Lady Lufton’s congratulations had nearly made him throw up the whole thing; but his wife’s smiles re-encouraged him; and Lucy’s warm and eager joy made him feel quite delighted with Mr. Sowerby and the Duke of Omnium. And then that splendid animal, Dandy, came home to the parsonage stables, much to the delight of the groom and gardener, and of the assistant stable boy who had been allowed to creep into the establishment, unawares as it were, since “master” had taken so keenly to hunting. But this satisfaction was not shared in the drawing-room. The horse was seen on his first journey round to the stable 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 further 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 backwards and forwards 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.