“Oh, be that you, sir, Mr. Robarts?” said a groom, taking the parson’s horse by the head, and touching his own hat. “I hope I see your reverence well?” “Quite well, Bob, thank you. All well at Chaldicotes?” “Pretty bobbish, Mr. Robarts. Deal of life going on here now, sir. The bishop and his lady came this morning.” “Oh—ah—yes! I understood they were to be here. Any of the young ladies?” “One young lady. Miss Olivia, I think they call her, your reverence.” “And how’s Mr. Sowerby?” “Very well, your reverence. He, and Mr. Harold Smith, and Mr. Fothergill—that’s the duke’s man of business, you know—is getting off their horses now in the stable-yard there.” “Home from hunting—eh, Bob?” “Yes, sir, just home, this minute.” And then Mr. Robarts walked into the house, his portmanteau following on a footboy’s shoulder. It will be seen that our young vicar was very intimate at Chaldicotes; so much so that the groom knew him, and talked to him about the people in the house. Yes; he was intimate there: much more than he had given the Framley people to understand. Not that he had wilfully and overtly deceived any one; not that he had ever spoken a false word about Chaldicotes. But he had never boasted at home that he and Sowerby were near allies. Neither had he told them there how often Mr. Sowerby and Lord Lufton were together in London. Why trouble women with such matters? Why annoy so excellent a woman as Lady Lufton? And then Mr. Sowerby was one whose intimacy few young men would wish to reject. He was fifty, and had lived, perhaps, not the most salutary life; but he dressed young, and usually looked well. He was bald, with a good forehead, and sparkling moist eyes. He was a clever man, and a pleasant companion, and always good-humoured when it so suited him. He was a gentleman, too, of high breeding and good birth, whose ancestors had been known in that county—longer, the farmers around would boast, than those of any other landowner in it, unless it be the Thornes of Ullathorne, or perhaps the Greshams of Greshamsbury—much longer than the De Courcys at Courcy Castle. As for the Duke of Omnium, he, comparatively speaking, was a new man. And then he was a member of Parliament, a friend of some men in power, and of others who might be there; a man who could talk about the world as one knowing the matter of which he talked. And moreover, whatever might be his ways of life at other times, when in the presence of a clergyman he rarely made himself offensive to clerical tastes. He neither swore, nor brought his vices on the carpet, nor sneered at the faith of the Church. If he was no churchman himself, he at least knew how to live with those who were.