alone, but he was not lucky enough to get away
before Mrs. Proudie returned. The bishop, perhaps, thought that
the story of the failure had better reach his wife's ears from Mr
Thumble's lips than from his own.

"Well, Mr. Thumble?" said Mrs. Proudie, walking into the study, armed
in her full Sunday-evening winter panoply, in which she had just
descended from her carriage. The church which Mrs. Proudie attended in
the evening was nearly half a mile from the palace, and the coachman
and groom never got a holiday on Sunday night. She was gorgeous in
a dark brown silk dress of awful stiffness and terrible dimensions;
and on her shoulders she wore a short cloak of velvet and fur, very
handsome withal, but so swelling in its proportions on all sides as
necessarily to create more of dismay than of admiration in the mind
of any ordinary man. And her bonnet was a monstrous helmet with the
beaver up, displaying the awful face of the warrior, always ready
for combat, and careless to guard itself from attack. The large
contorted bows which she bore were as a grisly crest upon her casque,
beautiful, doubtless, but majestic and fear-compelling. In her hand
she carried her armour all complete, a prayer-book, a Bible, and a
book of hymns. These the footman had brought for her to the study
door, but she had thought fit to enter her husband's room with them
in her own custody.

"Well, Mr. Thumble!" she said.

Mr. Thumble did not answer at once, thinking, probably, that the
bishop might choose to explain the circumstances. But, neither did
the bishop say anything.

"Well, Mr. Thumble?" she said again; and then she stood looking at the
man who had failed so disastrously.

"I have explained to the bishop," said he. "Mr. Crawley has been
contumacious,--very contumacious indeed."

"But you preached at Hogglestock?"

"No, indeed, Mrs. Proudie. Nor would it have been possible, unless I
had had the police to assist me."

"Then you should have had the police. I never heard of anything so
mismanaged in all my life,--never in all my life." And she put her
books down on the study table, and turned herself round from Mr
Thumble towards the bishop. "If things go on like this, my lord," she
said, "your authority in the diocese will very soon be worth nothing
at all." It was not often that Mrs. Proudie called her husband my
lord, but when she did do so, it was a sign that terrible times had
come;--times so terrible that the bishop would kno