passed from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification,
and is aware that submission produces the nearest approach to peace
which his own house can ever attain.

Mrs. Proudie has not been able to sit at the boards and committees
to which her husband has been called by the State, nor, as he often
reflects, can she make her voice heard in the House of Lords. It may
be that she will refuse to him permission to attend to this branch
of a bishop's duties; it may be that she will insist on his close
attendance to his own closet. He has never whispered a word on the
subject to living ears, but he has already made his fixed resolve.
Should such attempt be made he will rebel. Dogs have turned against
their masters, and even Neapolitans against their rulers, when
oppression has been too severe. And Dr. Proudie feels within himself
that if the cord be drawn too tight, he also can muster courage and
resist.

The state of vassalage in which our bishop has been kept by his wife
has not tended to exalt his character in the eyes of his daughters,
who assume in addressing their father too much of that authority
which is not properly belonging, at any rate, to them. They are, on
the whole, fine engaging young ladies. They are tall and robust like
their mother, whose high cheek-bones, and--we may say auburn hair they
all inherit. They think somewhat too much of their grand-uncles, who
have not hitherto returned the compliment by thinking much of them.
But now that their father is a bishop, it is probable that family
ties will be drawn closer. Considering their connexion with the
church, they entertain but few prejudices against the pleasures of
the world, and have certainly not distressed their parents, as too
many English girls have lately done, by any enthusiastic wish to