But he thought it better at present to let the subject drop.

"My dear," said he, "I think we must go back to London on Tuesday.
I find my staying here will be very inconvenient to the Government."

The bishop knew that to this proposal his wife would not object, and
he also felt that by thus retreating from the ground of battle the
heat of the fight might be got over in his absence.

"Mr. Slope will remain here, of course?" said the lady.

"Oh, of course," said the bishop.

Thus, after less than a week's sojourn in his palace, did the bishop
fly from Barchester; nor did he return to it for two months, the
London season being then over. During that time Mr. Slope was not
idle, but he did not again essay to preach in the cathedral. In
answer to Mrs. Proudie's letters advising a course of sermons, he had
pleaded that he would at any rate wish to put off such an undertaking
till she was there to hear them.

He had employed his time in consolidating a Proudie and Slope
party--or rather a Slope and Proudie party, and he had not employed
his time in vain. He did not meddle with the dean and chapter, except
by giving them little teasing intimations of the bishop's wishes
about this and the bishop's feelings about that, in a manner which
was to them sufficiently annoying, but which they could not resent.
He preached once or twice in a distant church in the suburbs of the
city, but made no allusion to the cathedral service. He commenced the
establishment of two "Bishop's Barchester Sabbath-day schools," gave
notice of a proposed "Bishop's Barchester Young Men's Sabbath Evening
Lecture Room," and wrote three or four letters to the manager of the
Barchester branch railway, informing him how anxious the bishop was
that the Sunday trains should be discontinued.

At the end of two months, however, the bishop and the lady reappeared,
and as a happy harbinger of their return, heralded their advent by
the promise of an evening party on the largest scale. The tickets of
invitation were sent out from London--they were dated from Bruton
Street, and were dispatched by the odious Sabbath-breaking railway,
in a huge brown paper parcel to Mr. Slope. Everybody calling himself
a gentleman, or herself a lady, within the city of Barchester, and a
circle of two miles round it, was included. Tickets were sent to all
the diocesan clergy, and also to many other persons of priestly note,
of whose absence the bishop, or at least the bishop's wif