returning; "always the
same--always equally adverse to impropriety of conduct of every
description;" and she stalked back through the room again, following
Mr. Slope out of the door.

The signora couldn't follow her, or she certainly would have done so.
But she laughed loud, and sent the sound of it ringing through the
lobby and down the stairs after Mrs. Proudie's feet. Had she been as
active as Grimaldi, she could probably have taken no better revenge.

"Mr. Slope," said Mrs. Proudie, catching the delinquent at the door,
"I am surprised you should leave my company to attend on such a
painted Jezebel as that."

"But she's lame, Mrs. Proudie, and cannot move. Somebody must have
waited upon her."

"Lame," said Mrs. Proudie; "I'd lame her if she belonged to me. What
business had she here at all?--such impertinence--such affectation."

In the hall and adjacent rooms all manner of cloaking and shawling
was going on, and the Barchester folk were getting themselves gone.
Mrs. Proudie did her best to smirk at each and every one as they made
their adieux, but she was hardly successful. Her temper had been
tried fearfully. By slow degrees the guests went.

"Send back the carriage quick," said Ethelbert, as Dr. and Mrs.
Stanhope took their departure.

The younger Stanhopes were left to the very last, and an
uncomfortable party they made with the bishop's family. They all
went into the dining-room, and then the bishop observing that "the
lady" was alone in the drawing-room, they followed him up. Mrs.
Proudie kept Mr. Slope and her daughters in close conversation,
resolving that he should not be indulged, nor they polluted. The
bishop, in mortal dread of Bertie and the Jews, tried to converse
with Charlotte Stanhope about the climate of Italy. Bertie and the
signora had no resource but in each other.

"Did you get your supper at last, Madeline?" said the impudent or
else mischievous young man.

"Oh, yes," said Madeline; "Mr. Slope was so very kind as to bring it
me. I fear, however, he put himself to more inconvenience than I
wished."

Mrs. Proudie looked at her but said nothing. The meaning of her look
might have been thus translated; "If ever you find yourself within
these walls again, I'll give you leave to be as impudent and affected
and as mischievous as you please."

At last the carriage returned with the three Italian servants, and La
Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni was carried out, as she had been carried
in.