he man who preaches it. Though the words of
God should never have come with greater power from the mouth of man, they
will come in vain if they be uttered by one who is known as a breaker of
the Commandments;--they will come in vain from the mouth of one who is
even suspected to be so. To all this, when it was said to him by the
Bishop in the kindest manner, Dr. Wortle replied that such suspicions were
monstrous, unreasonable, and uncharitable. He declared that they
originated with that abominable virago, Mrs. Stantiloup. "Look round the
diocese," said the Bishop in reply to this, "and see if you can find a
single clergyman acting in it, of the details of whose life for the last
five years you know absolutely nothing." Thereupon the Doctor said that he
would make inquiry of Mr. Peacocke himself. It might well be, he thought,
that Mr. Peacocke would not like such inquiry, but the Doctor was quite
sure that any story told to him would be true. On returning home he found
it necessary, or at any rate expedient, to postpone his questions for a
few days. It is not easy to ask a man what he has been doing with five
years of his life, when the question implies a belief that these five
years have been passed badly. And it was understood that the questioning
must in some sort apply to the man's wife. The Doctor had once said to
Mrs. Wortle that he stood in awe of Mrs. Peacocke. There had certainly
come upon him an idea that she was a lady with whom it would not be easy
to meddle. She was obedient, diligent, and minutely attentive to any wish
that was expressed to her in regard to her duties; but it had become
manifest to the Doctor that in all matters beyond the school she was
independent, and was by no means subject to external influences. She was
not, for instance, very constant in her own attendance at church, and
never seemed to feel it necessary to apologise for her absence. The
Doctor, in his many and familiar conversations with Mr. Peacocke, had not
found himself able to allude to this; and he had observed that the husband
did not often speak of his own wife unless it were on matters having
reference to the school. So it came to pass that he dreaded the
conversation which he proposed to himself, and postponed it from day to
day with a cowardice which was quite unusual to him.

And now, O kind-hearted reader, I feel myself constrained, in the telling
of this little story, to depart altogether from those princip