e master perceived, and so also did the
mistress. But Mrs. Proudie bided her time.

After dinner he returned to his study, where Mr. Slope soon found
him, and there they had tea together and planned many things. For
some few minutes the bishop was really happy; but as the clock on the
chimney-piece warned him that the stilly hours of night were drawing
on, as he looked at his chamber candlestick and knew that he must
use it, his heart sank within him again. He was as a ghost, all
whose power of wandering free through these upper regions ceases at
cock-crow; or, rather, he was the opposite of the ghost, for till
cock-crow he must again be a serf. And would that be all? Could he
trust himself to come down to breakfast a free man in the morning?

He was nearly an hour later than usual when he betook himself to his
rest. Rest! What rest? However, he took a couple of glasses of sherry
and mounted the stairs. Far be it from us to follow him thither. There
are some things which no novelist, no historian, should attempt; some
few scenes in life's drama which even no poet should dare to paint.
Let that which passed between Dr. Proudie and his wife on this night
be understood to be among them.

He came down the following morning a sad and thoughtful man. He was
attenuated in appearance--one might almost say emaciated. I doubt
whether his now grizzled locks had not palpably become more grey than
on the preceding evening. At any rate he had aged materially. Years
do not make a man old gradually and at an even pace. Look through
the world and see if this is not so always, except in those
rare cases in which the human being lives and dies without joys
and without sorrows, like a vegetable. A man shall be possessed
of florid, youthful blooming health till, it matters not what
age--thirty; forty; fifty--then comes some nipping frost, some period
of agony, that robs the fibres of the body of their succulence, and
the hale and hearty man is counted among the old.

He came down and breakfasted alone; Mrs. Proudie, being indisposed,
took her coffee in her bedroom, and her daughters waited upon her
there. He ate his breakfast alone, and then, hardly knowing what he
did, he betook himself to his usual seat in his study. He tried to
solace himself with his coming visit to the archbishop. That effort
of his own free will at any rate remained to him as an enduring
triumph. But somehow, now that he had achieved it, he did not seem
to care s