"You believe that people will say that?" "I think you should guard against it, for the sake of the parish." "What sort of people will say it?" "Lord Trowbridge, and his set." "On my honour, Janet, I think that you wrong Lord Trowbridge. He is a fool, and to a certain extent a vindictive fool; and I grant you that he has taken it into his silly old head to hate me unmercifully; but I believe him to be a gentleman, and I do not think that he would condescend to spread a damnably malicious report of which he did not believe a word himself." "But, my dear, he will believe it." "Why? How? On what evidence? He couldn't believe it. Let a man be ever such a fool, he can't believe a thing without some reason. I dislike Lord Trowbridge very much; and you might just as well say that because I dislike him I shall believe that he is a hard landlord. He is not a hard landlord; and were he to stick dissenting chapels all about the county, I should be a liar and a slanderer were I to say that he was." "But then, you see, you are not a fool, Frank." This brought the conversation to an end. The Vicar was willing enough to turn upon his heel and say nothing more on a matter as to which he was by no means sure that he was in the right; and his wife felt a certain amount of reluctance in urging any arguments upon such a subject. Whatever Lord Trowbridge might say or think, her Frank must not be led to suppose that any unworthy suspicion troubled her own mind. Nevertheless, she was sure that he was imprudent. When the fortnight was near at an end, and nothing had been done, he went again over to Salisbury. It was quite true that he had business there, as a gentleman almost always does have business in the county town where his banker lives, whence tradesmen supply him, and in which he belongs to some club. And our Vicar, too, was a man fond of seeing his bishop, and one who loved to move about in the precincts of the cathedral, to shake hands with the dean, and to have a little subrisive fling at Mr. Chamberlaine, or such another as Mr. Chamberlaine, if the opportunity came in his way. He was by no means indisposed to go into Salisbury in the ordinary course of things; and on this occasion absolutely did see Mr. Chamberlaine, the dean, his saddler, and the clerk at the Fire Insurance Office,--as well as Mrs. Stiggs and Carry Brattle. If, therefore, anyone had said that on this day he had gone into Salisbury simply to see Carry Brattle, such person would have maligned him. He reduced the premium on his Fire Insurance by 5_s._ 6_d._ a year, and he engaged Mr. Chamberlaine to meet Mr. Quickenham, and he borrowed from the dean an old book about falconry; so that in fact the few minutes which he spent at Mrs. Stiggs's house were barely squeezed in among the various affairs of business which he had to transact at Salisbury.