He was standing there thus with a placid little baby in his arms—a baby placid enough, but one that would not kiss him eagerly, and stroke his face with her soft little hands, as he would have had her do—when he saw the dean coming toward him. He was sharp-sighted as a lynx out in the open air, though now obliged to pore over his well-fingered books with spectacles on his nose; and thus he knew his friend from a long distance, and had time to meditate the mode of his greeting. He too doubtless had come, if not with jelly and chicken, then with money and advice—with money and advice such as a thriving dean might offer to a poor brother clergyman; and Mr. Crawley, though no husband could possibly be more anxious for a wife's safety than he was, immediately put his back up and began to bethink himself how these tenders might be rejected.
"How is she?" were the first words which the dean spoke as he pulled up his horse close to the little gate, and put out his hand to take that of his friend.
"How are you, Arabin?" said he. "It is very kind of you to come so far, seeing how much there is to keep you at Barchester. I can not say that she is any better, but I do not know that she is worse. Sometimes I fancy that she is delirious, though I hardly know. At any rate, her mind wanders, and then after that she sleeps."
"But is the fever less?"
"Sometimes less and sometimes more, I imagine."
"And the children?"
"Poor things! they are well as yet."
"They must be taken from this, Crawley, as a matter of course."
Mr. Crawley fancied that there was a tone of authority in the dean's advice, and immediately put himself into opposition.
"I do not know how that may be; I have not yet made up my mind."
"But, my dear Crawley—"
"Providence does not admit of such removals in all cases," said he. "Among the poorer classes the children must endure such perils."
"In many cases it is so," said the dean, by no means inclined to make an argument of it at the present moment, "but in this case they need not. You must allow me to
