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164 rather louder than usual. 'Something to do with the ointment. I was selling the business just then.'

Mrs. Proudie bowed, and immediately changed the conversation. 'Idolatry is, I believe, more rampant than ever in Rome,' said she; 'and I fear there is no such thing at all as Sabbath observances.'

'Oh, not the least,' said Miss Dunstable, with rather a joyous air; 'Sundays and week-days are all the same there.'

'How very frightful!' said Mrs. Proudie.

'But it's a delicious place. I do like Rome, I must say. And as for the Pope, if he wasn't quite so fat he would be the nicest old fellow in the world. Have you been in Rome, Mrs. Proudie?'

Mrs. Proudie sighed as she replied in the negative, and declared her belief that danger was to be apprehended from such visits.

'Oh!—ah!—the malaria—of course—yes; if you go at the wrong time; but nobody is such a fool as that now.'

'I was thinking of the soul, Miss Dunstable,' said the lady-bishop, in her peculiar, grave tone. 'A place where there are no sabbath observances—'

'And have you been at Rome, Mr. Gresham?' said the young lady, turning almost abruptly round to Frank, and giving a somewhat uncivilly cold shoulder to Mrs. Proudie's exhortation. She, poor lady, was forced to finish her speech to the Honourable George, who was standing near to her. He having an idea that bishops and all their belongings, like other things appertaining to religion, should, if possible, be avoided; but if that were not possible, should be treated with much assumed gravity, immediately put on a long face, and remarked that—'it was a deuced shame: for his part he always liked to see people go quiet on Sundays. The parsons had only one day out of seven, and he thought they were fully entitled to that.' Satisfied with which, or not satisfied, Mrs. Proudie had to remain silent till dinner-time.

'No,' said Frank; 'I never was in Rome. I was in Paris once, and that's all.' And then, feeling a not unnatural anxiety as to the present state of Miss Dunstable's worldly concerns, he took an opportunity of falling back on that part of the conversation which Mrs. Proudie had exercised so much tact in avoiding.

'And was it sold?' said he.

'Sold! what sold?'

'You were saying about the business—that you came back without going to bed because of selling the business.'

'Oh!—the ointment. No; it was not sold. After all, the affair did not come off, and I might have remained and had another roll in the snow. Wasn't it a pity?'