er, as she had entered she
had caught sight of a society reporter, and she knew that her presence,
and the fact that she was accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously
proclaimed in the morning papers. All these evidences of the success of
her handiwork might have turned a calmer head than Mrs. Fetherel's; and
though she had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still
filled her inwardly with a delightful glow.

The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the
interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already
partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a
satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination,
Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure
now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of
society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the
purpose of her new book. Experience had shown her that where she had
fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding
in guarded terms to the drawing-room shovel. She was determined not to
repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her coming
novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale,
however likely it was to receive this crowning evidence of success.

She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst into
song and the ceremony of the unveiling began. The Bishop, almost always
felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex, was never more so than
when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his cherished purposes.
There was a peculiar mixture of Christian humility and episcopal
exultation in the manner with which he called attention to the
Creator's promptness in responding to his demand for funds, and he had
never been more happily inspired than in eulogizing the mysterious gift
of the chantry window.

Though no hint of the donor's identity had been allowed to escape him,
it was generally understood that the Bishop knew who had given the
window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense the
possible announcement of a name. None came, however, though the Bishop
deliciously titillated the curiosity of his flock by circling ever
closer about the interesting secret. He would not disguise from them,
he said, that the heart which had divined his inmost wish had been a
woman's--is it not to woman's intuitions that more than half the
happiness of earth is