“Is that Mr. Robarts?” said Mrs. Harold Smith, getting up to greet him, and screening her pretended ignorance under the veil of the darkness. “And have you really driven over four-and-twenty miles of Barsetshire roads on such a day as this to assist us in our little difficulties? Well, we can promise you gratitude at any rate.” And then the vicar shook hands with Mrs. Proudie, in that deferential manner which is due from a vicar to his bishop’s wife; and Mrs. Proudie returned the greeting with all that smiling condescension which a bishop’s wife should show to a vicar. Miss Proudie was not quite so civil. Had Mr. Robarts been still unmarried, she also could have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen too long to waste them now on a married parish parson. “And what are the difficulties, Mrs. Smith, in which I am to assist you?” “We have six or seven gentlemen here, Mr. Robarts, and they always go out hunting before breakfast, and they never come back--I was going to say--till after dinner. I wish it were so, for then we should not have to wait for them.” “Excepting Mr. Supplehouse, you know,” said the unknown lady, in a loud voice. “And he is generally shut up in the library, writing articles.” “He’d be better employed if he were trying to break his neck like the others,” said the unknown lady. “Only he would never succeed,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “But perhaps, Mr. Robarts, you are as bad as the rest; perhaps you, too, will be hunting to-morrow.” “My dear Mrs. Smith!” said Mrs. Proudie, in a tone denoting slight reproach, and modified horror. “Oh! I forgot. No, of course, you won’t be hunting, Mr. Robarts; you’ll only be wishing that you could.” “Why can’t he?” said the lady with the loud voice. “My dear Miss Dunstable! a clergyman hunt, while he is staying in the same house with the bishop? Think of the proprieties!” “Oh--ah! The bishop wouldn’t like it--wouldn’t he? Now, do tell me, sir, what would the bishop do to you if you did hunt?” “It would depend upon his mood at the time, madam,” said Mr. Robarts. “If that were very stern, he might perhaps have me beheaded before the palace gates.” Mrs. Proudie drew herself up in her chair, showing that she did not like the tone of the conversation; and Miss Proudie fixed her eyes vehemently on her book, showing that Miss Dunstable and her conversation were both beneath her notice. “If these gentlemen do not mean to break their necks to-night,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, “I wish they’d let us know it. It’s half-past six already.” And then Mr. Robarts gave them to understand that no such catastrophe could be looked for that day, as Mr. Sowerby and the other sportsmen were within the stable-yard when he entered the door.