It was, indeed, in her eyes one of the peculiar institutions of
country life in England, and it may be almost said that she looked
upon the Barsetshire Hunt as something sacred. She could not endure
to hear that a fox was trapped, and allowed her turkeys to be
purloined without a groan. Such being the case, she did not like
being told that it was vicious, and had by no means wished to consult
Mr. Crawley on that matter. But nevertheless she swallowed down her
wrath.
"It is at any rate unbecoming in a clergyman," she said; "and as I
know that Mr. Robarts places a high value on your opinion, perhaps
you will not object to advise him to discontinue it. He might
possibly feel aggrieved were I to interfere personally on such a
question."
"I have no doubt he would," said Mr. Crawley. "It is not within a
woman's province to give counsel to a clergyman on such a subject,
unless she be very near and very dear to him--his wife, or mother, or
sister."
"As living in the same parish, you know, and being, perhaps--" the
leading person in it, and the one who naturally rules the others.
Those would have been the fitting words for the expression of her
ladyship's ideas; but she remembered herself, and did not use them.
She had made up her mind that, great as her influence ought to be,
she was not the proper person to speak to Mr.
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