r pushing nobodies, who try to get hold
of everyone of the least position quite as much as you do. So let us
consider whom we _ought_ to ask to meet him. A small party, I think it
should be; he would take it as a greater compliment if the party were
small."

She had that shallow and ungenerous mind which shrinks instinctively
from admitting any beauty or intellect in others, and which grudges any
participation in benefits, however amply sufficient they may be for all.
Thus, few must be asked to meet the Bishop, that it might the better
appear that few indeed, beside the Rector and Mrs Parkyn, were fit to
associate with so distinguished a man.

"I quite agree with you," said the Rector, considerably relieved to find
that his own temerity in asking the Bishop might now be considered as
condoned. "Our party must above all things be select; indeed, I do not
know how we could make it anything but very small; there are so few
people whom we _could_ ask to meet the Bishop."

"Let me see," his wife said, making a show of reckoning Cullerne
respectability with the fingers of one hand on the fingers of the other.
"There is--" She broke off as a sudden idea seized her. "Why, of
course, we must ask Lord Blandamer. He has shown such marked interest
in ecclesiastical matters that he is sure to wish to meet the Bishop."

"A most fortunate suggestion--admirable in every way. It may strengthen
his interest in the church; and it must certainly be beneficial to him
to associate with correct society after his wandering and Bohemian life.
I hear all kinds of strange tales of his hobnobbing with this Mr
Westray, the clerk of the works, and with other persons entirely out of
his own rank. Mrs Flint, who happened to be visiting a poor woman in a
back lane, assures me that she has every reason to believe that he spent
an hour or more in the clerk's house, and even ate there. They say he
positively ate tripe."

"Well, it will certainly do him good to meet the Bishop," the lady said.
"That would make four with ourselves; and we can ask Mrs Bulteel. We
need not ask her husband; he is painfully rough, and the Bishop might
not like to meet a brewer. It will not be at all strange to ask her
alone; there is always the excuse of not liking to take a businessman
away from his work in the middle of the day."

"That would be five; we ought to make it up to six. I suppose it would
not do to ask this architect-fellow or Mr Sharnall."

"My