LXXXIV Conclusion




CHAPTER I

HOW DID HE GET IT?

'I can never bring myself to believe it, John,' said Mary Walker the
pretty daughter of Mr George Walker, attorney of Silverbridge. Walker
and Winthrop was the name of the firm, and they were respectable people,
who did all the solicitors' business that had to be done in that part of
Barsetshire on behalf of the Crown, were employed on the local business
of the Duke of Omnium, who is great in those parts, and altogether held
their heads up high, as provincial lawyers often do. They--the
Walkers--lived in a great brick house in the middle of the town, gave
dinners, to which the county gentlemen not unfrequently condescended to
come, and in a mild way led the fashion in Silverbridge. 'I can never
bring myself to believe it, John,' said Miss Walker.

'You'll have to bring yourself to believe it,' said John, without taking
his eyes from his book.

'A clergyman--and such a clergyman too!'

'I don't see that that has anything to do with it.' And as he now
spoke, John did take his eyes of his book. 'Why should not a clergyman
turn thief as well as anybody else? You girls always seem to forget that
clergymen are only men after all.'