earlier than any one had
expected, to the great delight of Messrs. Sowerby and Supplehouse,
who, on that evening, moved and carried a vote of thanks to Mrs.
Proudie. For they had gay doings yet before they went to their beds.

"Robarts, here one moment," Mr. Sowerby said, as they were standing
at the door of the Mechanics' Institute. "Don't you go off with Mr.
and Mrs. Bishop. We are going to have a little supper at the Dragon
of Wantly, and, after what we have gone through, upon my word we want
it. You can tell one of the palace servants to let you in." Mark
considered the proposal wistfully. He would fain have joined the
supper party had he dared; but he, like many others of his cloth, had
the fear of Mrs. Proudie before his eyes. And a very merry supper
they had; but poor Mr. Harold Smith was not the merriest of the
party.

CHAPTER VII

Sunday Morning

It was, perhaps, quite as well on the whole for Mark Robarts, that he
did not go to that supper party. It was eleven o'clock before they
sat down and nearly two before the gentlemen were in bed. It must
be remembered that he had to preach, on the coming Sunday morning,
a charity sermon on behalf of a mission to Mr. Harold Smith's
islanders; and, to tell the truth, it was a task for which he had
now very little inclination. When first invited to do this, he had
regarded the task seriously enough, as he always did regard such
work, and he completed his sermon for the occasion before he left
Framley; but, since that, an air of ridicule had been thrown over the
whole affair, in which he had joined without much thinking of his own
sermon, and this made him now heartily wish that he could choose a
discourse upon any other subject. He knew well that the very points
on which he had most insisted, were those which had drawn most mirth
from Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Smith, and had oftenest provoked his own
laughter; and how was he now to preach on those matters in a fitting
mood, knowing, as he would know, that those two ladies would be
looking at him, would endeavour to catch his eye, and would turn him
into ridicule as they had already turned the lecturer? In this he did
injustice to one of the ladies, unconsciously. Miss Dunstable, with
all her aptitude for mirth, and we may almost fairly say for frolic,
was in no way inclined to ridicule religion or anything which she
thought to appertain to it. It may be presumed that among such things
she did not include Mrs.