would be most improbable," said Mrs. Wortle.

"So was all this improbable,--just as improbable. Nothing could be more
improbable. Do we not all feel overcome with pity for the poor woman
because she encountered trouble that was so improbable? How much more
improbable was it that I should come across a clergyman who had
encountered such improbabilities." In answer to this Mrs. Wortle could
only shake her head, not at all understanding the purport of her husband's
argument.

But what was said about his school hurt him more than what was said about
his church. In regard to his church he was impregnable. Not even the
Bishop could touch him,--or even annoy him much. But this
"penny-a-liner," as the Doctor indignantly called him, had attacked him in
his tenderest point. After declaring that he did not intend to meddle
with the school, he had gone on to point out that an immoral person had
been employed there, and had then invited all parents to take away their
sons. "He doesn't know what moral and immoral means," said the Doctor,
again pleading his own case to his own wife. "As far as I know, it would
be hard to find a man of a higher moral feeling than Mr. Peacocke, or a
woman than his wife."

"I suppose they ought to have separated when it was found out," said Mrs.
Wortle.

"No, no," he shouted; "I hold that they were right. He was right to cling
to her, and she was bound to obey him. Such a fellow as that,"--and he
crushed the paper up in his hand in his wrath, as though he were crushing
the editor himself,--"such a fellow as that knows nothing of morality,
nothing of honour, nothing of tenderness. What he did I would have done,
and I'll stick to him through it all in spite of the Bishop, in spite of
the newspapers, and in spite of all the rancour of all my enemies." Then
he got up and walked about the room in such a fury that his wife did not
dare to speak to him. Should he or should he not answer the newspaper?
That was a question which for the first two days after he had read the
article greatly perplexed him. He would have been very ready to advise
any other man what to do in such a case. "Never notice what may be
written about you in a newspaper," he would have said. Such is the advice
which a man always gives to his friend. But when the case comes to
himself he finds it sometimes almost impossible to follow it. "What's the
use? Who cares what the 'Broughton Gazette' says? let it pass, and it