. We English gentlemen hate the name of a lie, but how
often do we find public men who believe each other's words?

CHAPTER XXXIII

Mrs. Proudie Victrix

The next week passed over at Barchester with much apparent
tranquillity. The hearts, however, of some of the inhabitants were
not so tranquil as the streets of the city. The poor old dean still
continued to live, just as Sir Omicron Pie had prophesied that he
would do, much to the amazement, and some thought disgust, of Dr.
Fillgrave. The bishop still remained away. He had stayed a day or
two in town and had also remained longer at the archbishop's than
he had intended. Mr. Slope had as yet received no line in answer
to either of his letters, but he had learnt the cause of this.
Sir Nicholas was stalking a deer, or attending the Queen, in the
Highlands, and even the indefatigable Mr. Towers had stolen an autumn
holiday, and had made one of the yearly tribe who now ascend Mont
Blanc. Mr. Slope learnt that he was not expected back till the last
day of September.

Mrs. Bold was thrown much with the Stanhopes, of whom she became
fonder and fonder. If asked, she would have said that Charlotte
Stanhope was her especial friend, and so she would have thought.
But, to tell the truth, she liked Bertie nearly as well; she had no
more idea of regarding him as a lover than she would have had of
looking at a big tame dog in such a light. Bertie had become very
intimate with her, and made little speeches to her, and said little
things of a sort very different from the speeches and sayings of
other men. But then this was almost always done before his sisters;
and he, with his long silken beard, his light blue eyes, and strange
dress, was so unlike other men. She admitted him to a kind of
familiarity which she had never known with anyone else, and of which
she by no means understood the danger. She blushed once at finding
that she had called him Bertie and, on the same day, only barely
remembered her position in time to check herself from playing upon
him some personal practical joke to which she was instigated by
Charlotte.

In all this Eleanor was perfectly innocent, and Bertie Stanhope could
hardly be called guilty. But every familiarity into which Eleanor
was entrapped was deliberately planned by his sister. She knew well
how to play her game, and played it without mercy; she knew, none so
well, what was her brother's character, and she would have handed
over to him