reformers villains, all placemen plunderers, and so forth; and Mrs.
Newcome never, I am sure, imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she
was other than an honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the
ladies had command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily
led by woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family.
Accordingly, when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the
City, Mr. Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the
House of Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked
traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the
Marylebone Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband,
and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High
Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the
progress of Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew,
because the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach
in a surplice.

Poor bewildered Honeyman! it was a sad day for you, when you appeared in
your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief (and your sermon
likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, freshly mangled surplice,
which you thought became you! How did you look aghast, and pass your
jewelled hand through your curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome, who had been
as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up from her pew,
seize hold of Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew-door, drive out with her
parasol her little flock of children, bewildered but not ill-pleased to
get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back seats to bring
away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did Charles Honeyman
lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the high-priest of his
diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to view him afterwards,
and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had they been going to tear
him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked