Cobb that "she for one wouldn't
lay it down like Medes and Persians, that we should have nothing to do
with a woman because her husband had made a fool of himself. I'm not a
Mede nor a Persian, Mrs. Cobb. I say let us wait and see what she is
like."
Mrs. Bingham was of the same mind. She dwelt much to herself on the
fact that Mrs. Midleton's great-grandfather must have been a lord. She
secretly hoped that as a wine merchant's wife she might obtain admission
into a "sphere," as she called it, from which the other ladies in the
town might be excluded. Mrs. Bingham already foretasted the bliss of an
invitation to the rectory to meet Lady Caroline from Thaxton Manor; she
already foretasted the greater bliss of not meeting her intimate friends
there, and that most exquisite conceivable bliss of telling them
afterwards all about the party.
Mrs. Midleton and her husband returned on a Saturday afternoon. The
road from Thaxton cross-roads did not lie through the town: the
carriage was closed and nobody saw her. When they came to the rectory
the Doctor pointed to the verse in white paint on the wall, "It shall be
taken out," he said, "before to-morrow morning: to-morrow is Sunday.
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