, or that he should not have it.
The bishop felt that he could not honestly throw over the Quiverfuls
without informing Mrs. Proudie, and he resolved at last to brave the
lioness in her den and tell her that circumstances were such that it
behoved him to reappoint Mr. Harding. He did not feel that he should
at all derogate from his new courage by promising Mrs. Proudie that
the very first piece of available preferment at his disposal should
be given to Quiverful to atone for the injury done to him. If he
could mollify the lioness with such a sop, how happy would he think
his first efforts to have been!

Not without many misgivings did he find himself in Mrs. Proudie's
boudoir. He had at first thought of sending for her. But it was not at
all impossible that she might choose to take such a message amiss, and
then also it might be some protection to him to have his daughters
present at the interview. He found her sitting with her account-books
before her, nibbling the end of her pencil, evidently immersed in
pecuniary difficulties, and harassed in mind by the multiplicity
of palatial expenses and the heavy cost of episcopal grandeur. Her
daughters were around her. Olivia was reading a novel, Augusta was
crossing a note to her bosom friend in Baker Street, and Netta was
working diminutive coach wheels for the bottom of a petticoat. If the
bishop could get the better of his wife in her present mood, he would
be a man indeed. He might then consider the victory his own forever.
After all, in such cases the matter between husband and wife stands
much the same as it does between two boys at the same school, two cocks
in the same yard, or two armies on the same continent. The conqueror
once is generally the conqueror forever after. The prestige of victory
is everything.

"Ahem--my dear," began the bishop, "if you are disengaged, I wished
to speak to you." Mrs. Proudie put her pencil down carefully at the
point to which she had totted her figures, marked down in her memory
the sum she had arrived at, and then looked up, sourly enough, into
her helpmate's face. "If you are busy, another time will do as
well," continued the bishop, whose courage, like Bob Acres', had
oozed out now that he found himself on the ground of battle.

"What is it about, Bishop?" asked the lady.

"Well--it was about those Quiverfuls--but I see you are engaged.
Another time will do just as well for me."

"What about the Quiverfuls? It is quite underst