'Is he one of the Lancashire Pendles, dear Mrs Pansey?' 'A twenty-fifth cousin or thereabouts. He says he is a nearer relation, but I know much more about it than he does. If you want an ornamental bishop with good legs for gaiters, and a portly figure for an apron, Dr Pendle's the man. But as a God-fearing priest' (with a groan), 'a simple worshipper' (groan) 'and a lowly, repentant sinner' (groan), 'he leaves much--much to be desired.' 'Oh, Mrs Pansey, the dear bishop a sinner?' 'Why not?' cried Mrs Pansey, ferociously; 'aren't we all miserable sinners? Dr Pendle's a human worm, just as you are--as I am. You may dress him in lawn sleeves and a mitre, and make pagan genuflections before his throne, but he is only a worm for all that.' 'What about his wife?' asked Daisy, to avert further expansion of this text. 'A poor thing, my dear, with a dilated heart and not as much blood in her body as would fill a thimble. She ought to be in a hospital, and would be, too, if I had my way. Lolling all day long on a sofa, and taking glasses of champagne between doses of iron and extract of beef; then giving receptions and wearing herself out. How he ever came to marry the white-faced doll I can't imagine. She was a Mrs Creagth when she caught him.' 'Oh, really! a widow?' 'Of course, of course. You don't suppose she's a bigamist even though he's a fool, do you?' and the eyebrows went up and down in the most alarming manner. 'The bishop--he was a London curate then--married her some eight-and-twenty years ago, and I daresay he has repented of it ever since. They have three children--George' (with a whisk of her fan at the mention of each name), 'who is a good-looking idiot in a line regiment; Gabriel, a curate as white-faced as his mother, and no doubt afflicted as she is with heart trouble. He was in Whitechapel, but his father put him in a curacy here--it was sheer nepotism. Then there is Lucy; she is the best of the bunch, which is not saying much. They've engaged her to young Sir Harry Brace, and now they are giving this reception to celebrate having inveigled him into the match.' 'Engaged?' sighed the fair Daisy, enviously. 'Oh, do tell me if this girl is really, really pretty.' 'Humph,' said the eyebrows, 'a pale, washed-out rag of a creature--but what can you expect from such a mother? No brains, no style, no conversation; always a simpering, weak-eyed rag baby. Oh, my dear, what fools men are!' 'Ah, you may well say that, dear Mrs Pansey,' assented the spinster, thinking wrathfully of this unknown girl who had succeeded where she had failed. 'Is it a very, very good match?'