on by Bishop Proudie, not from love, but from expediency.
Mr. John Chadwick was one of those gentlemen, two or three of
whom are to be seen in connexion with every see,--who seem to be
hybrids,--half-lay, half-cleric. They dress like clergymen, and
affect that mixture of clerical solemnity and clerical waggishness
which is generally to be found among minor canons and vicar chorals
of a cathedral. They live, or at least have their offices, half
in the Close and half out of it,--dwelling as it were just on the
borders of holy orders. They always wear white neck-handkerchiefs and
black gloves; and would be altogether clerical in their appearance,
were it not that as regards the outward man they impinge somewhat
on the characteristics of the undertaker. They savour of the church,
but the savour is of the church's exterior. Any stranger thrown
into chance contact with one of them would, from instinct, begin to
talk about things ecclesiastical without any reference to things
theological or things religious. They are always most worthy men,
much respected in the society of the Close, and I never heard of one
of them whose wife was not comfortable or whose children were left
without provision.

Such a one was Mr. John Chadwick, and as it was a portion of his
duties to accompany the bishop to consecrations and ordinations, he
knew Dr. Proudie very well. Having been brought up, as it were, under
the very wing of Bishop Grantly, it could not well be that he should
love Bishop Grantly's successor. The old bishop and the new bishop
had been so different that no man could like, or even esteem, them
both. But Mr. Chadwick was a prudent man, who knew well the source
from which he earned his bread, and he had never quarrelled with
Bishop Proudie. He knew Mrs. Proudie also,--of necessity,--and when I
say of him that he had hitherto avoided any open quarrel with her, it
will I think be allowed that he was a man of prudence and sagacity.

But he had sometimes been sorely tried, and he felt when he got
her note that he was now about to encounter a very sore trial. He
muttered something which might have been taken for an oath, were it
not that the outwards signs of the man gave warranty that no oath
could proceed from such a one. Then he wrote a short note presenting
his compliments to Mrs. Proudie, and saying that he would call at the
palace at eleven o'clock on the following morning.

But, in the meantime, Mrs. Proudie, who could not be