h is due from a vicar to his bishop's wife; and Mrs.
Proudie returned the greeting with all that smiling condescension
which a bishop's wife should show to a vicar. Miss Proudie was not
quite so civil. Had Mr. Robarts been still unmarried, she also could
have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen
too long to waste them now on a married parish parson.

"And what are the difficulties, Mrs. Smith, in which I am to assist
you?"

"We have six or seven gentlemen here, Mr. Robarts, and they always go
out hunting before breakfast, and they never come back--I was going
to say--till after dinner. I wish it were so, for then we should not
have to wait for them."

"Excepting Mr. Supplehouse, you know," said the unknown lady, in a
loud voice.

"And he is generally shut up in the library, writing articles."

"He'd be better employed if he were trying to break his neck like the
others," said the unknown lady.

"Only he would never succeed," says Mrs. Harold Smith. "But perhaps,
Mr. Robarts, you are as bad as the rest; perhaps you, too, will be
hunting to-morrow."

"My dear Mrs. Smith!" said Mrs. Proudie, in a tone denoting slight
reproach, and modified horror.

"Oh! I forgot. No, of course, you won't be hunting, Mr. Robarts;
you'll only be wishing that you could."

"Why can't he?" said the lady, with a loud voice.

"My dear Miss Dunstable! a clergyman hunt, while he is staying in the
same house with the bishop? Think of the proprieties!"

"Oh--ah! The bishop wouldn't like it--wouldn't he? Now, do tell me,
sir, what would the bishop do to you if you did hunt?"

"It would depend upon his mood at the time, madam," said Mr. Robarts.
"If that were very stern, he might perhaps have me beheaded before
the palace gates."

Mrs. Proudie drew herself up in her chair, showing that she did
not like the tone of the conversation; and Miss Proudie fixed her
eyes vehemently on her book, showing that Miss Dunstable and her
conversation were both beneath her notice.

"If these gentlemen do not mean to break their necks to-night," said
Mrs. Harold Smith, "I wish they'd let us know it. It's half-past six
already." And then Mr. Robarts gave them to understand that no such
catastrophe could be looked for that day, as Mr. Sowerby and the
other sportsmen were within the stable-yard when he entered the door.

"Then, ladies, we may as well dress," said Mrs. Harold Smith. But
as she moved towards the door, it opened,