Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed.  “Perhaps that’s just as well,” she returned, with a philosophic shrug.  “The surprise will be all the pleasanter, I mean.  For of course it’s going to sell tremendously; especially if you can get the press to denounce it.”

“Bella, how can you?  I sometimes think you say such things expressly to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would understand my purpose in writing such a book.  It has always seemed to me that the message I had to deliver was not for myself alone, but for all the other women in the world who have felt the hollowness of our social shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the idols of the market, but have lacked either the courage or the power to proclaim their independence; and I have fancied, Bella dear, that, however severely society might punish me for revealing its weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy of those who, like you”—­Mrs. Fetherel’s voice sank—­“have passed through the deep waters.”

Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free her ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to have traversed.

“Oh, call them muddy rather than deep,” she returned; “and you’ll find, my dear, that women who’ve had any wading to do are rather shy of stirring up mud.  It sticks—­especially on white clothes.”

Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow.  “I’m not afraid,” she proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a clatter and shrank back into her seat.  “There’s the bell,” she exclaimed, “and I know it’s the Bishop!”

It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced by Mrs. Fetherel’s butler, now made an entry that may best be described as not inadequate to the expectations the announcement raised.  The Bishop always entered a room well; but, when unannounced, or preceded by a Low Church butler who gave him his surname, his appearance lacked the impressiveness conferred on it by the due specification of his diocesan dignity.  The Bishop was very fond of his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one of the traits he most valued in her was the possession of a butler who knew how to announce a bishop.

Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself open to her uncle’s criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of going into five or ten editions, while the fruits of his own episcopal leisure—­“The Wail of Jonah” (twenty cantos in blank verse), and “Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora Memorial Window”—­inexplicably languished on the back shelves of a publisher noted for his dexterity in pushing “devotional goods.”  Even this indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned, had his niece thought fit to turn to him for support and advice at the painful juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became necessary for her to invite Mr. Clinch to look out for another