Oh, the immorality of these latter days! No wonder the end of all things is predicted.’
Miss Norsham paid little attention to the latter portion of this diatribe. As Sir Harry Brace was out of the matrimonial market it conveyed no information likely to be of use to her in the coming campaign. She wished to be informed as to the number and the names of eligible men, and forewarned with regard to possible rivals.
‘And who is really and truly the most beautiful girl in Beorminster?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Mab Arden,’ replied Mrs Pansey, promptly. ‘There, now,’ with an emphatic blow of her fan, ‘she is pretty, if you like, though I daresay there is more art than nature about her.’
‘Who is Mab Arden, dear Mrs Pansey?’
‘She is Miss Whichello’s niece, that’s who she is.’
‘Whichello? Oh, good gracious me! what a very, very funny name. Is Miss Whichello a foreigner?’
‘Foreigner? Bah!’ cried Mrs Pansey, like a stentorian ram, ‘she belongs to a good old English family, and, in my opinion, she disgraces them thoroughly. A meddlesome old maid, who wants to foist her niece on to George Pendle; and she’s likely to succeed, too,’ added the lady, rubbing her nose with a vexed air, ‘for the young ass is in love with Mab, although she is three years older than he is. Mr Cargrim also likes the girl, though I daresay it is money with him.’
‘Really! Mr Cargrim?’
‘Yes, he is the bishop’s chaplain; a Jesuit in disguise I call him, with his moping and mowing and sneaky ways. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; oh, dear no! I gave my opinion about him pretty plainly to Dr Graham, I can tell you, and Graham’s the only man with brains in this city of fools.’
‘Is Dr Graham young?’ asked Miss Norsham, in the faint hope that Mrs Pansey’s list of inhabitants might include a wealthy bachelor.
‘Young? He’s sixty, if you call that young, and in his second childhood. An Atheist, too. Tom Payn, Colonel Ingersoll, Viscount Amberly—those are his gods, the pagan! I’d burn him on a tar-barrel if I had my way. It’s a pity we don’t stick to some customs of our ancestors.’
‘Oh, dear me, are there no young men at all?’
‘Plenty, and all idiots. Brainless officers, whose wives would have to ride on a baggage-waggon; silly young squires, whose ideal of womanhood is a brazen barmaid; and simpering curates, put into the Church as the fools of their respective families. I don’t know what men are coming to,’ groaned Mrs Pansey. ‘The late archdeacon was clever and pious; he honoured and obeyed me as the marriage service says a man should do. I was the light of the dear man’s eyes.’
Had Mrs Pansey stated that she had been the terror of the late archdeacon’s life she would have been vastly nearer the truth, but such a remark never occurred to her. Although she had bullied and badgered the wretched little man until he had seized the first opportunity of finding in the grave the peace denied him in life, she really and truly believed that she had been a model wife. The egotism of first person singular was so firmly ingrained in the woman that she could not conceive what a scourge she was to mankind in general; what a trial she had been to her poor departed husband in particular. If the late Archdeacon Pansey had not died he would doubtless have become a missionary to some cannibal tribe in the South Seas in the hope that his tough helpmate would be converted into ‘long-pig.’ But, unluckily for Beorminster, he was dead and his relict was a mourning widow, who constantly referred to her victim as a perfect husband. And yet Mrs Pansey considered that Anthony Trollope’s celebrated Mrs Proudie was an overdrawn character.
As to Miss Norsham, she was in the depths of despair, for, if Mrs Pansey was to be believed, there was no eligible husband for her in Beorminster. It was with a heavy heart that the spinster entered the palace, and it was with the courage born of desperation that she perked up and smiled on the gay crowd she found within.

CHAPTER II. THE BISHOP IS WANTED


The episcopalian residence, situate some distance from the city, was a mediæval building, enshrined in the remnant of a royal chase, and in its perfect quiet and loneliness resembled the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. Its composite architecture was of many centuries and many styles, for bishop after bishop had pulled down portions and added others, had levelled a tower here and erected a wing there, until the result was a jumble of divers designs, incongruous but picturesque. Time had mellowed the various parts into one rich coloured whole of perfect beauty, and elevated on a green rise, surrounded by broad stone terraces, with towers and oriels and turrets and machicolated battlements; clothed with ivy, buried amid ancient trees, it looked like the realisation of a poet’s dream. Only long ages and many changing epochs; only home-loving prelates, ample monies, and architects of genius, could have created so beautiful and unique a fabric. It was the admiration of transatlantic tourists with a twang; the desire of millionaires. Aladdin’s industrious genii would have failed to build such a masterpiece, unless their masters had arranged to inhabit it five centuries or so after construction. Time had created it, as Time would destroy it, but at present it was in perfect preservation, and figured in steel-plate engravings as one of the stately homes of England. No wonder the mitre of Beorminster was a coveted prize, when its gainer could dwell in so noble and matchless a mansion.
As the present prelate was an up-to-date bishop, abreast of his time and fond of his creature comforts, the interior of the palace was modernised completely in accordance with the luxurious demands of nineteenth century civilisation. The stately reception-rooms—thrown open on this night to what theBeorminster Weekly Chronicle , strong in foreign tongues, tautologically called ‘theélite and crême de la crême of the diocese’—were brilliantly illuminated by electric lamps and furnished magnificently throughout, in keeping with their palatial appearance. The ceilings were painted in the Italian style, with decently-clothed Olympian deities; the floors were of parquetry, polished so highly, and reflecting so truthfully, that the guests seemed to be walking, in some magical way, upon still water.