Whenever Mr.Robarts would plead that in going anywhere he would have the benefit of meeting the bishop, Lady Lufton would slightly curl her upper lip.

She could not say in words that Bishop Proudie--bishop as he certainly must be called--was no better than he ought to be; but by that curl of her lip she did explain to those who knew her that such was the inner feeling of her heart.
And then it was understood--Mark Robarts, at least, had so heard, and the information soon reached Framley Court--that Mr.Supplehouse was to make one of the Chaldicotes party.

Now Mr.Supplehouse was a worse companion for a gentleman-like, young, High Church, conservative county parson than even Harold Smith.

He also was in Parliament, and had been extolled during the early days of that Russian War by some portion of the metropolitan daily press, as the only man who could save the country.

Let him be in the ministry, the _Jupiter_ had said, and there would be some hope of reform, some chance that England's ancient glory would not be allowed in these perilous times to go headlong to oblivion.