“He sends forth to his clergy either blessings or blowings-up, according to the state of his digestive organs. But Mrs. Proudie can explain all that to you with the greatest accuracy.” “Can she, now? I understand what you mean, but I don’t believe a word of it. The bishop manages his own affairs himself, quite as much as you do, or Mr. Harold Smith.” “I, Miss Dunstable?” “Yes, you.” “But I, unluckily, have not a wife to manage them for me.” “Then you should not laugh at those who have, for you don’t know what you may come to yourself, when you’re married.” Mr. Supplehouse began to make a pretty speech, saying that he would be delighted to incur any danger in that respect to which he might be subjected by the companionship of Miss Dunstable. But before he was half through it, she had turned her back upon him, and begun a conversation with Mark Robarts. “Have you much work in your parish, Mr. Robarts?” she asked. Now, Mark was not aware that she knew his name, or the fact of his having a parish, and was rather surprised by the question. And he had not quite liked the tone in which she had seemed to speak of the bishop and his work. His desire for her further acquaintance was therefore somewhat moderated, and he was not prepared to answer her question with much zeal. “All parish clergymen have plenty of work, if they choose to do it.” “Ah, that is it; is it not, Mr. Robarts? If they choose to do it? A great many do—many that I know, do; and see what a result they have. But many neglect it—and see what a result _they_ have. I think it ought to be the happiest life that a man can lead, that of a parish clergyman, with a wife and family, and a sufficient income.” “I think it is,” said Mark Robarts, asking himself whether the contentment accruing to him from such blessings had made him satisfied at all points. He had all these things of which Miss Dunstable spoke, and yet he had told his wife, the other day, that he could not afford to neglect the acquaintance of a rising politician like Harold Smith. “What I find fault with is this,” continued Miss Dunstable, “that we expect clergymen to do their duty, and don’t give them a sufficient income—give them hardly any income at all. Is it not a scandal, that an educated gentleman with a family should be made to work half his life, and perhaps the whole, for a pittance of seventy pounds a year?” Mark said that it was a scandal, and thought of Mr. Evan Jones and his daughter;—and thought also of his own worth, and his own house, and his own nine hundred a year. “And yet you clergymen are so proud—aristocratic would be the genteel word, I know—that you won’t take the money of common, ordinary poor people. You must be paid from land and endowments, from tithe and church property. You can’t bring yourself to work for what you earn, as lawyers and doctors do. It is better that curates should starve than undergo such ignominy as that.” “It is a long subject, Miss Dunstable.”