“A weighty utterance! But I’m afraid Mrs. Browning—by the way, have you put the Bishop into your letter?”
“I had thought of reading it to you both, but now I shall not.”
She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it up with practical swiftness, rang the bell for Annie and sent it to the postbox round the corner.
“I put the Bishop in,” she added, with a mockery of defiance that was almost girlish, when Annie had gone out.
“That was a mistake,” said the Canon sonorously.
“Why?”
“Bishops never carry weight with the wives, or widows, of deans.”
“But why not?” asked Rosamund, with a touch of real anxiety.
“Because the wives of deans always think their husbands ought to be bishops instead of those who are bishops, and the widows of deans always consider that they ought to be the widows of bishops. They therefore very naturally feel that bishops are not entitled by merit to the positions they hold, and could be treated with a delicate disdain.”
“I never thought of that. I wonder if Annie——”