e would
probably be back on Saturday. There are men--may we not rather say
monsters?--who do such things, and there are wives--may we not rather
say slaves?--who put up with such usage. But Dr. and Mrs. Proudie
were not among the number.

The bishop, with some beating about the bush, made the lady
understand that he very much wished to go. The lady, without any
beating about the bush, made the bishop understand that she wouldn't
hear of it. It would be useless here to repeat the arguments that
were used on each side, and needless to record the result. Those
who are married will understand very well how the battle was lost
and won, and those who are single will never understand it till
they learn the lesson which experience alone can give. When Mrs.
Quiverful was shown into Mrs. Proudie's room, that lady had only
returned a few minutes from her lord. But before she left him she
had seen the answer to the archbishop's note written and sealed. No
wonder that her face was wreathed with smiles as she received Mrs.
Quiverful.

She instantly spoke of the subject which was so near the heart of her
visitor. "Well, Mrs. Quiverful," said she, "is it decided yet when
you are to move into Barchester?"

"That woman," as she had an hour or two since been called, became
instantly re-endowed with all the graces that can adorn a bishop's
wife. Mrs. Quiverful immediately saw that her business was to be
piteous, and that nothing was to be gained by indignation--nothing,
indeed, unless she could be indignant in company with her patroness.

"Oh, Mrs. Proudie," she began, "I fear we are not to move to
Barchester at all."

"Why not?" said that lady sharply, dropping at a moment's notice her
smiles and condescension, and turning with her sharp quick way to
business which she saw at a glance was important.

And then Mrs. Quiverful told her tale. As she progressed in the
history of her wrongs she perceived that the heavier she leant upon
Mr. Slope the blacker became Mrs. Proudie's brow, but that such
blackness was not injurious to her own case. When Mr. Slope was
at Puddingdale Vicarage that morning she had regarded him as the
creature of the lady-bishop; now she perceived that they were
enemies. She admitted her mistake to herself without any pain or
humiliation. She had but one feeling, and that was confined to her
family. She cared little how she twisted and turned among these
new-comers at the bishop's palace so long as she could twi