ult? Return,
Bishop, to thy sanctum on the lower floor and postpone thy combative
propensities for some occasion in which at least thou mayest fight
the battle against odds less tremendously against thee.

All this passed within the bishop's bosom while Mrs. Proudie still
sat with her fixed pencil, and the figures of her sum still enduring
on the tablets of her memory. "L4 17s. 7d." she said to herself.
"Of course Mr. Quiverful must have the hospital," she said out loud
to her lord.

"Well, my dear, I merely wanted to suggest to you that Mr. Slope
seems to think that if Mr. Harding be not appointed, public feeling
in the matter would be against us, and that the press might perhaps
take it up."

"Mr. Slope seems to think!" said Mrs. Proudie in a tone of voice
which plainly showed the bishop that he was right in looking for a
breach in that quarter. "And what has Mr. Slope to do with it? I
hope, my lord, you are not going to allow yourself to be governed by
a chaplain." And now in her eagerness the lady lost her place in her
account.

"Certainly not, my dear. Nothing I can assure you is less probable.
But still, Mr. Slope may be useful in finding how the wind blows, and
I really thought that if we could give something else as good to the
Quiverfuls--"

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Proudie; "it would be years before you could
give them anything else that could suit them half as well, and as for
the press and the public and all that, remember there are two ways of
telling a story. If Mr. Harding is fool enough to tell his tale, we
can also tell ours. The place was offered to him, and he refused it.
It has now been given to someone else, and there's an end of it. At
least I should think so."

"Well, my dear, I rather believe you are right," said the bishop, and
sneaking out of the room, he went downstairs, troubled in his mind as
to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself
not very well just at present, and began to consider that he might,
not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack
of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to bilious annoyances.

"Mr. Slope, indeed! I'll Slope him," said the indignant matron to
her listening progeny. "I don't know what has come to Mr. Slope.
I believe he thinks he is to be Bishop of Barchester himself, because
I've taken him by the hand and got your father to make him his
domestic chaplain."

"He was always full of impudence," sai