urch bishop; and was not less frequent in her attendance at the
ecclesiastical doings of a certain terrible prelate in the Midland
counties, who was supposed to favour stoles and vespers, and to have
no proper Protestant hatred for auricular confession and fish on
Fridays. Lady Lufton, who was very staunch, did not like this, and
would say of Miss Dunstable that it was impossible to serve both
God and Mammon. But Mrs. Proudie was much more objectionable to her.
Seeing how sharp was the feud between the Proudies and the Grantlys
down in Barsetshire, how absolutely unable they had always been to
carry a decent face towards each other in Church matters, how they
headed two parties in the diocese, which were, when brought together,
as oil and vinegar, in which battles the whole Lufton influence had
always been brought to bear on the Grantly side;--seeing all this, I
say, Lady Lufton was surprised to hear that Griselda had been taken
to Mrs. Proudie's evening exhibition. "Had the archdeacon been
consulted about it," she said to herself, "this would never have
happened." But there she was wrong, for in matters concerning his
daughter's introduction to the world the archdeacon never interfered.

On the whole, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Grantly understood
the world better than did Lady Lufton. In her heart of hearts Mrs.
Grantly hated Mrs. Proudie--that is, with that sort of hatred one
Christian lady allows herself to feel towards another. Of course Mrs.
Grantly forgave Mrs. Proudie all her offences, and wished her well,
and was at peace with her, in the Christian sense of the word, as
with all other women. But under this forbearance and meekness, and
perhaps, we may say, wholly unconnected with it, there was certainly
a current of antagonistic feeling which, in the ordinary unconsidered
language of every day, men and women do call hatred. This raged and
was strong throughout the whole year in Barsetshire, before the eyes
of all mankind. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Grantly took Griselda to
Mrs. Proudie's evening parties in London. In these days Mrs. Proudie
considered herself to be by no means the least among bishops' wives.
She had opened the season this year in a new house in Gloucester
Place, at which the reception rooms, at any rate, were all that a
lady bishop could desire. Here she had a front drawing-room of very
noble dimensions, a second drawing-room rather noble also, though it
had lost one of its back corners awkwa