A daughter of the archdeacon had made a splendid matrimonial
alliance--so splendid that its history was at the time known to all the
aristocracy of the county, and had not been altogether forgotten by any
of those who keep themselves well instructed in the details of the
peerage. Griselda Grantly had married Lord Dumbello, the eldest don of
the Marquis of Hartletop--than whom no English nobleman was more
puissant, if broad acres, many castles, high title, and stars and
ribbons are any sign of puissance--and she was now, herself, Marchioness
of Hartletop, with a little Lord Dumbello of her own. The daughter's
visits to the parsonage of her father were of necessity rare, such
necessity having come from her own altered sphere of life. A Marchioness
of Hartletop has special duties which will hardly permit her to devote
herself frequently to the humdrum society of a clerical mother and
father. That it would be so, father and mother had understood when they
sent the fortunate girl forth to a higher world. But, now and again,
since her august marriage, she had laid her coroneted head upon one of
the old rectory pillows for a night or so, and, on such occasions all
the Plumsteadians had been loud in praise of her condescension. Now it
happened that when this second and more aggravated blast of the evil
wind reached the rectory--the renewed waft as to Major Grantly's
infatuation regarding Miss Grace Crawley, which, on its renewal, seemed
to bring with it something of a confirmation--it chanced, I say, that at
that moment Griselda, Marchioness of Hartletop, was gracing the paternal
mansion.

I am not quite sure that the mother would have been equally quick to ask
her daughter's advice, had she been left in the matter entirely to her
own propensities. Mrs Grantly had ever loved her daughter dearly, and
had been very proud of that great success in life which Griselda had