There had been great exultation in St. Augustine’s over the demonstration. At the lively supper-party which was held in the little house which the Sitwells occupied, en attendant the parsonage which had been promised them (it was one of their chief grievances that no steps had been as yet taken towards carrying out this promise), on the evening after the school-feast, the parson’s wife had been more animated, more witty even, than usual. She had made quite a little drama of the possible scene going on in the rectory, where the Canon and his wife were supposed to be discussing the matter. She walked about the room to represent Mrs. Jenkinson panting with rage, demanding, ‘Canon, what where you doing that you let it be? Why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t you interfere? I’d rather have written to the bishop, and had them turned off on the spot—that man: and that woman! The woman is far the worst, in my opinion. I am very surprised that you didn’t interfere!’ Then Mrs. Sitwell puffed herself out so that you would actually have believed her to be Canon Jenkinson, and made her small voice into something as like his softly rolling bass as was possible to so different an organ. ‘If you will consider, my dear, there was nothing to go to the bishop with. The most contemptible of creatures, even a curate, is committing no crime when he gets up a school-feast; and he may even be so abandoned as to give a garden-party, and still his bishop would not interfere. Bishops have too little power—their hands are dreadfully tied. If ever I take a bishopric, I hope they’ll be good for something more——’ ‘I should hope so, indeed!’ cried the imaginary Canon’s wife in asthmatic pants. ‘The Thompsons too—poor Sir Sam, who is too good-natured for anything. You will see that odious little woman will turn him round her finger. He’ll build their parsonage—he’ll back them up in everything. He’ll get them a grant for their schools, Canon;
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 and it will be your fault if you let him slip through your fingers. Austin, dear!’ cried little Mrs. Sitwell, suddenly becoming herself, with her little ingratiating look, and her voice a little thin, high-pitched, and shrill— ‘Austin, dear! will you turn upon me if I let him slip out of mine?’
Austin dear had laughed until he had cried over these sketches of his ecclesiastical superiors, and so had the Rev. Mr. Bright, and even good Miss Marsham—for they were well done; and the cleverness with which this small person made herself into the semblance of two large people was wonderful. But afterwards Mr. Sitwell shook his head a little. ‘I hope he will do what you, or rather Mrs. Jenkinson, thinks,’ he said. ‘I sha’n’t mind how much you turn him round your little finger: but these fat men are not so easily influenced as you would suppose,’ he added, with a sigh.
‘And, my dear,’ said Miss Marsham, nervously pulling out the little bit of yellow lace round her wrist, and keeping her eyes upon it, ‘though you make me laugh—I can’t help it, it is so funny to hear you do them—yet, you know, if they feel it as much as that, I am sorry. I want you to get your parsonage, and I want St. Augustine’s to get on. I am sure if I had money enough I should like, above all things, to give it you for all your schemes; but I don’t want them to suffer—I don’t, indeed,’ she said, making a little hole in her lace, and then trying with nervous efforts to draw it together. Miss Marsham was of opinion, ever after, that this hole in her old Mechlin was in some way judicial,—a judgment upon her for having participated, however unwillingly, in the ridicule of her old friends.
‘As for Sir Sam, if he resists Mrs. Sitwell, he will be the first who has done it,’ said Mr. Bright admiringly. He was not aware that she called him ‘Angels ever Bright and Fair’ when he was not present, and sang that sacred ditty with all his little airs and graces, so that the circle permitted to see the performance nearly died with laughter—or so at least they said.
But the demonstration was over, and nothing more happened. The sudden stop which comes to all excitement when it has been stirred up to a boiling pitch, and afterwards has just to subside again and nothing happens—is painful. The Sitwells went on from day to day expecting a letter from Sir Sam, in which he should propose to build the parsonage (he could so easily!—it would not have cost him a truffle from his dinner, of which the doctor said he ate far too much), or to start the subscription for it with a good round sum, so as to induce others to follow—or, at the very
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 least, enclosing a cheque for the schools. But nothing came, not even an invitation to dinner, which would have afforded an occasion to the parson’s wife to turn the fat gentleman round her finger, as she had almost engaged to do. Nothing came except, in a fortnight’s time, an invitation to—a garden-party! Mrs. Sitwell cried with anger and disappointment when this arrived. She took it in to her husband in his study, after she had calmed down a little. ‘Look what I have got!’ she said; ‘an invitation to Alkaleigh—to a garden-party—next month. What shall I say?’
‘A garden-party! is that all it has come to?’ cried the parson; and then he added, angrily, ‘Say we’ve no time for such nonsense—say we never go to garden-parties—say we’re engaged.’
‘I don’t think we should do that. I was very angry too, for the first moment; but when I came to think of it, I felt sure it was her doing. Women never want their husbands to give away their money. And at a garden-party, you know, Austin, there are such opportunities—when you have your wits about you, and can make use of them.’
‘It doesn’t seem as if we did much when we had him in Wombwell’s field—at your command,’ the parson said.
This change of pronouns was very significant, and the sharp little clergywoman perceived it instantly. Austin did not like the idea of wheedling a soap-boiler—especially when it was entirely unsuccessful. He did not want it to be supposed, even by himself, that he ever countenanced such unworthy ways. A man cannot (notwithstanding all Biblical and other warrants for it) control his wife, or get her to refrain from using her own methods; and so long as it is clearly understood that he is not responsible for them—— Adam did not object to the apple,—rather liked it, so far as we have any information; but he wished it to be known that it was his wife’s doing, not any suggestion of his. Unfortunately, however, he could not slide out of the responsibility, as Mr. Sitwell, among a community always disposed to think it was her doing, was not unhopeful of being able to do.
‘I gave in to you about making a demonstration,’ he said. ‘It cost a good deal of money, Dora, and I can’t say I ever heartily approved of it; but I gave in, thinking you knew more of society than I did, and that you might be right. And it was a great success, you all said. No; I don’t say anything against that. I daresay it was a success; but what has come of it? Nothing at all—except twenty pounds for the schools, counting that ten of Cissy Marsham’s, which we should have had anyhow.
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’
‘Twenty pounds is always something, Austin,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, ignoring the drawback. ‘And it is a great deal to have made it so fully known. Sow your bread, don’t you know, by all waters, and it will return to us after many days.’
‘That’s all very well, my dear,’ said the parson, a little subdued—for how is a man of his cloth to answer when you stop his mouth with a text? He added, however, somewhat dolefully, ‘And not a move about the parsonage; and if we are to stay here another winter, when not a single door or window fits, and the rain is always coming in through the roof——’
‘We must stay here another winter, and there is an end of it!’ cried his wife.’ If the subscriptions were full and money to spare, they couldn’t build the parsonage in four months. You must see the landlord, Austin, and get him to do something. And we must think of something else to get up the money; we haven’t tried half the things we might. Why, if the worst comes to the worst we can have a bazaar. There’s always money to be made in that way: and private theatricals, and a concert—and——’
‘Dora, you know I hate bazaars.’
‘Everybody says so,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘But everybody goes, and everybody buys, no matter what rubbish it is. People that won’t give a shilling will spend twenty in materials for making up some trumpery or other, and twenty more in buying other trumpery that other people have made. Bazaars must respond to some need of human nature, Austin, which it has been left to this generation to find out.’
‘It looks like it,’ says the parson. ‘But don’t talk to me about it, Dora. If it has to be, I suppose I shall find philosophy enough to tolerate it when the time comes.’
‘Oh, tolerate it! You will be out and in ten times a day, making pretty speeches to all the ladies,’ cried little Mrs. Sitwell, with a laugh. ‘Depend upon it, you will find a bazaar responds to some need of your nature too.’ She said this, though he did not find it out, so exactly in her husband’s own tone, and with his manner, that she had to laugh herself at the double joke of her own fun and his unconsciousness. ‘And “Angels ever Bright and Fair” will enjoy it above all things. He will wonder how we never thought of a thing so delightfully calculated to bring people together before.’
This time it was the parson wh............