t? Who says so?" And she
sat opposite to her husband, with her elbows on the table, her hands
clasped together, and her coarse, solid, but once handsome face
stretched over it towards him.

She sat as silent as death while he told his story, and very dreadful
to him her silence was. He told it very lamely and badly but still
in such a manner that she soon understood the whole of it.

"And so you have resigned it?" said she.

"I have had no opportunity of accepting it," he replied. "I had no
witnesses to Mr. Slope's offer, even if that offer would bind the
bishop. It was better for me, on the whole, to keep on good terms
with such men than to fight for what I should never get!"

"Witnesses!" she screamed, rising quickly to her feet and walking up
and down the room. "Do clergymen require witnesses to their words?
He made the promise in the bishop's name, and if it is to be broken,
I'll know the reason why. Did he not positively say that the bishop
had sent him to offer you the place?"

"He did, my dear. But that is now nothing to the purpose."

"It is everything to the purpose, Mr. Quiverful. Witnesses indeed!
And then to talk of your honour being questioned because you wish to
provide for fourteen children. It is everything to the purpose; and
so they shall know, if I scream it into their ears from the town
cross of Barchester."

"You forget, Letitia, that the bishop has so many things in his gift.
We must wait a little longer. That is all."

"Wait! Shall we feed the children by waiting? Will waiting put George,
and Tom, and Sam out into the world? Will it enable my poor girls to
give up some of their drudgery? Will waiting make Bessy and Jane fit
even to be governesses? Will waiting pay for the things we got in
Barchester last week?"

"It is all we can do, my dear. The disappointment is as much to me
as to you; and yet, God knows, I feel it more for your sake than my
own."

Mrs. Quiverful was looking full into her husband's face, and saw a
small hot tear appear on each of those furrowed cheeks. This was too
much for her woman's heart. He also had risen, and was standing with
his back to the empty grate. She rushed towards him and, seizing him
in her arms, sobbed aloud upon his bosom.

"You are too good, too soft, too yielding," she said at last. "These
men, when they want you, they use you like a cat's paw; and when they
want you no longer, they throw you aside like an old shoe. This is
twice they have tr