upon him—as no doubt it was intended to do. And then he was utterly dumbfounded by Sowerby's impudence in drawing on him for £500 instead of £400, "covering," as Sowerby so good-humoredly said, "sundry little outstanding trifles."
But at last he did sign the bill, and sent it off, as Sowerby had directed. What else was he to do?
Fool that he was. A man always can do right, even though he has done wrong before. But that previous wrong adds so much difficulty to the path—a difficulty which increases in tremendous ratio till a man at last is choked in his struggling, and is drowned beneath the waters.
And then he put away Sowerby's letter carefully, locking it up from his wife's sight. It was a letter that no parish clergyman should have received. So much he acknowledged to himself. But, nevertheless, it was necessary that he should keep it. And now again, for a few hours, this affair made him very miserable.
Lady Lufton had been greatly rejoiced at that good deed which her son did in giving up his Leicestershire hunting, and coming to reside for the winter at Framley. It was proper, and becoming, and comfortable in the extreme. An English nobleman ought to hunt in the county where he himself owns the fields over which he rides; he ought to receive the respect and honor due to him from his own tenants; he ought to sleep under a roof of his own, and he ought also—so Lady Lufton thought—to fall in love with a young embryo bride of his own mother's choosing.
And then it was so pleasant to have him there in the house. Lady Lufton was not a woman who allowed her life to be what people in common parlance call dull. She had too many duties, and thought too much of them, to allow of her suffering from tedium and ennui. But, nevertheless, the house was more joyous to her when he was there. There was a reason for some little gayety, which would never have been attracted thither by herself, but which, nevertheless, she did enjoy when it was brought
