e up at a quarter before one. It was managed
excellently, and Mr. Slope was invaluable.

At half-past nine the bishop and his wife and their three daughters
entered the great reception-room, and very grand and very solemn
they were. Mr. Slope was downstairs giving the last orders about the
wine. He well understood that curates and country vicars with their
belongings did not require so generous an article as the dignitaries
of the close. There is a useful gradation in such things, and
Marsala at 20s. a dozen did very well for the exterior supplementary
tables in the corner.

"Bishop," said the lady, as his lordship sat himself down, "don't sit
on that sofa, if you please; it is to be kept separate for a lady."

The bishop jumped up and seated himself on a cane-bottomed chair.
"A lady?" he inquired meekly; "do you mean one particular lady, my
dear?"

"Yes, Bishop, one particular lady," said his wife, disdaining to
explain.

"She has got no legs, Papa," said the youngest daughter, tittering.

"No legs!" said the bishop, opening his eyes.

"Nonsense, Netta, what stuff you talk," said Olivia. "She has got
legs, but she can't use them. She has always to be kept lying down,
and three or four men carry her about everywhere."

"Laws, how odd!" said Augusta. "Always carried about by four men!
I'm sure I shouldn't like it. Am I right behind, Mamma? I feel as
if I was open;" and she turned her back to her anxious parent.

"Open! To be sure you are," said she, "and a yard of petticoat
strings hanging out. I don't know why I pay such high wages to Mrs.
Richards if she can't take the trouble to see whether or no you are
fit to be looked at," and Mrs. Proudie poked the strings here, and
twitched the dress there, and gave her daughter a shove and a shake,
and then pronounced it all right.

"But," rejoined the bishop, who was dying with curiosity about the
mysterious lady and her legs, "who is it that is to have the sofa?
What's her name, Netta?"

A thundering rap at the front door interrupted the conversation.
Mrs. Proudie stood up and shook herself gently, and touched her cap
on each side as she looked in the mirror. Each of the girls stood on
tiptoe and rearranged the bows on their bosoms, and Mr. Slope rushed
upstairs three steps at a time.

"But who is it, Netta?" whispered the bishop to his youngest
daughter.

"La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni," whispered back the daughter;
"and mind you don't let anyone sit upon