And then Mrs. Proudie passed on to Mrs. Grantly. The two ladies were quite friendly in London; though down in their own neighbourhood they waged a war so internecine in its nature. But nevertheless Mrs. Proudie’s manner might have showed to a very close observer that she knew the difference between a bishop and an archdeacon. “I am so delighted to see you,” said she. “No, don’t mind moving; I won’t sit down just at present. But why didn’t the archdeacon come?”
“It was quite impossible; it was indeed,” said Mrs. Grantly. “The archdeacon never has a moment in London that he can call his own.”
“You don’t stay up very long, I believe.”
“A good deal longer than we either of us like, I can assure you. London life is a perfect nuisance to me.”
“But people in a certain position must go through with it, you know,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The bishop, for instance, must attend the house.”
“Must he?” asked Mrs. Grantly, as though she were not at all well informed with reference to this branch of a bishop’s business. “I am very glad that archdeacons are under no such liability.”
“Oh, no; there’s nothing of that sort,” said Mrs. Proudie, very seriously. “But how uncommonly well Miss Grantly is looking! I do hear that she has quite been admired.”
This phrase certainly was a little hard for the mother to bear. All the world had acknowledged, so Mrs. Grantly had taught herself to believe, that Griselda was undoubtedly the beauty of the season. Marquises and lords were already contending for her smiles, and paragraphs had been written in newspapers as to her profile. It was too hard to be told, after that, that her daughter had been “quite admired.” Such a phrase might suit a pretty little red-cheeked milkmaid of a girl.
“She cannot, of course, come near your girls in that respect,” said Mrs. Grantly, very quietly. Now the Miss Proudies had not elicited from the fashionable world any very loud encomiums on their beauty. Their mother felt the taunt in its fullest force, but she would not essay to do battle on the present arena. She jotted down the item in her mind, and kept it over for Barchester and the chapter. Such debts as those she usually paid on some day, if the means of doing so were at all within her power.
“But there is Miss Dunstable, I declare,” she said, seeing that that lady had entered the room; and away went Mrs. Proudie to welcome her distinguished guest.