tself with pseudo-pity and tender
grimaces, seemed specially to call for such punishment. She had, too,
a true instinct as to the man; he was capable of rebuke in this way
and in no other. To him the blow from her little hand was as much
an insult as a blow from a man would have been to another. It went
directly to his pride. He conceived himself lowered in his dignity and
personally outraged. He could almost have struck at her again in his
rage. Even the pain was a great annoyance to him, and the feeling that
his clerical character had been wholly disregarded sorely vexed him.

There are such men: men who can endure no taint on their personal
self-respect, even from a woman; men whose bodies are to themselves
such sacred temples that a joke against them is desecration, and
a rough touch downright sacrilege. Mr. Slope was such a man, and
therefore the slap on the face that he got from Eleanor was, as
far as he was concerned, the fittest rebuke which could have been
administered to him.

But nevertheless, she should not have raised her hand against the
man. Ladies' hands, so soft, so sweet, so delicious to the touch, so
graceful to the eye, so gracious in their gentle doings, were not made
to belabour men's faces. The moment the deed was done Eleanor felt
that she had sinned against all propriety, and would have given little
worlds to recall the blow. In her first agony of sorrow she all but
begged the man's pardon. Her next impulse, however, and the one which
she obeyed, was to run away.

"I never, never will speak another word to you," she said, gasping
with emotion and the loss of breath which her exertion and violent
feelings occasioned her, and so saying she put foot to the ground and
ran quickly back along the path to the house.

But how shall I sing the divine wrath of Mr. Slope, or how invoke the
tragic muse to describe the rage which swelled the celestial bosom
of the bishop's chaplain? Such an undertaking by no means befits the
low-heeled buskin of modern fiction. The painter put a veil over
Agamemnon's face when called on to depict the father's grief at the
early doom of his devoted daughter. The god, when he resolved to
punish the rebellious winds, abstained from mouthing empty threats.
We will not attempt to tell with what mighty surgings of the inner
heart Mr. Slope swore to revenge himself on the woman who had
disgraced him, nor will we vainly strive to depict his deep agony of
soul.

There he is, h