Lady Clementina displayed her sensibility and feeling for the sick prelate by the extravagance of hysteric fits; except at those times when she talked seriously with her husband upon the injustice which she thought would be done to him, and to his many pamphlets and sermons, if he did not immediately rise to episcopal honour.
“Surely, dean,” said she, “should you be disappointed upon this occasion, you will write no more books for the good of your country?”
“Yes, I will,” he replied; “but the next book I write for the good of my country shall be very different, nay the very reverse of those I have already written.”
“How, dean! would you show yourself changed?”
“No, but I will show that my country is changed.”
“What! since you produced your last work; only six weeks ago!”
“Great changes may occur in six days,” replied the dean, with a threatening accent; “and if I find things have taken a new and improper turn, I will be the first to expose it.”
“But before you act in this manner, my dear, surely you will wait—”
“I will wait until the see is disposed of to another,” said he.
He did wait: the bishop died. The dean was promoted to the see of ---, and wrote a folio on the prosperity of our happy country.