She was neither laborious, nor well-informed, nor perhaps altogether honest--what woman ever understood the necessity or recognized the advantage of political honesty ?--but then she was neither dull nor pompous, and if she was conceited, she did not show it.

She was a disappointed woman, as regards her husband; seeing that she had married him on the speculation that he would at once become politically important; and as yet Mr.Smith had not quite fulfilled the prophecies of his early life.
And Lady Lufton, when she spoke of the Chaldicotes set, distinctly included, in her own mind, the Bishop of Barchester, and his wife and daughter.

Seeing that Bishop Proudie was, of course, a man much addicted to religion and to religious thinking, and that Mr.Sowerby himself had no peculiar religious sentiments whatever, there would not at first sight appear to be ground for much intercourse, and perhaps there was not much of such intercourse; but Mrs.Proudie and Mrs.Harold Smith were firm friends of four or five years' standing--ever since the Proudies came into the diocese; and therefore the bishop was usually taken to Chaldicotes whenever Mrs.
Smith paid her brother a visit.

Now Bishop Proudie was by no means a High Church dignitary, and Lady Lufton had never forgiven him for coming into that diocese.

She had, instinctively, a high respect for the episcopal office; but of Bishop Proudie himself she hardly thought better than she did of Mr.Sowerby, or of that fabricator of evil, the Duke of Omnium.