What he was about to do
would, he was aware, delay considerably his final settlement with
Lord Lufton; but Lufton, he hoped, would pardon that, and agree with
him as to the propriety of what he was about to do.
On the first blush of the thing Lady Lufton did not quite go along
with him. Now that Lord Lufton was to marry the parson's sister it
might be well that the parson should be a dignitary of the Church;
and it might be well, also, that one so nearly connected with her son
should be comfortable in his money matters. There loomed, also, in
the future, some distant possibility of higher clerical honours for a
peer's brother-in-law; and the top rung of the ladder is always more
easily attained when a man has already ascended a step or two. But,
nevertheless, when the matter came to be fully explained to her, when
she saw clearly the circumstances under which the stall had been
conferred, she did agree that it had better be given up. And well
for both of them it was--well for them all at Framley--that this
conclusion had been reached before the scourge of Nemesis had fallen.
Nemesis, of course, declared that her scourge had produced the
resignation; but it was generally understood that this was a false
boast, for all clerical men at Barchester knew that the stall had
been restored to the chapter, or, in other words, into the hands of
the Government, before Tom Towers had twirled the fatal lash above
his head.
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