Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/302

272 "That may be, but he did think so. I do believe that he had not the slightest notion where he got it; and, which is more, not a single person in the whole county had a notion. People thought that he had picked it up, and used it in his despair. And the bishop has been so hard upon him."

"Oh, Mr. Eames, that is the worst of all."

"So I am told. The bishop has a wife, I believe."

"Yes, he has a wife, certainly," said Mrs. Arabin.

"And people say that she is not very good-natured."

"There are some of us at Barchester who do not love her very dearly. I cannot say that she is one of my own especial friends."

"I believe she has been hard to Mr. Crawley," said John Eames.

"I should not be in the least surprised," said Mrs. Arabin.

Then they reached Turin, and there, taking up "Galignani's Messenger" in the reading-room of Trompetta's Hotel, John Eames saw that Mrs. Proudie was dead. "Look at that," said he, taking the paragraph to Mrs. Arabin; "Mrs. Proudie is dead!" "Mrs. Proudie dead!" she exclaimed. "Poor woman! Then there will be peace at Barchester!" "I never knew her very intimately," she afterwards said to her companion, "and I do not know that I have a right to say that she ever did me an injury. But I remember well her first coming into Barchester. My sister's father-in-law, the late bishop, was just dead. He was a mild, kind, dear old man, whom my father loved beyond all the world, except his own children. You may suppose we were all a little sad. I was not specially connected with the cathedral then, except through my father,"—and Mrs. Arabin, as she told all this, remembered that in the days of which she was speaking she was a young mourning widow,—"but I think I can never forget the sort of harsh-toned pæan of low-church trumpets with which that poor woman made her entry into the city. She might have been more lenient, as we had never sinned by being very high. She might, at any rate, have been more gentle with us at first. I think we had never attempted much beyond decency, good-will and comfort. Our comfort she utterly destroyed. Good-will was not to her taste. And as for decency, when I remember some things, I must say that when the comfort and good-will went, the decency went along with them. And now she is dead! I wonder how the bishop will get on without her."

"Like a house on fire, I should think," said Johnny.

"Fie, Mr. Eames; you shouldn't speak in such a way on such a subject."

Mrs. Arabin and Johnny became fast friends as they journeyed