delight of Messrs. Sowerby and Supplehouse, who, on that evening, moved and carried a vote of thanks to Mrs. Proudie. For they had gay doings yet before they went to their beds.
"Robarts, here one moment," Mr. Sowerby said, as they were standing at the door of the Mechanics' Institute. "Don't you go off with Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. We are going to have a little supper at the Dragon of Wantley, and, after what we have gone through, upon my word we want it. You can tell one of the palace servants to let you in."
Mark considered the proposal wistfully. He would fain have joined the supper-party had he dared; but he, like many others of his cloth, had the fear of Mrs. Proudie before his eyes.
And a very merry supper they had; but poor Mr. Harold Smith was not the merriest of the party.
It was perhaps quite as well, on the whole, for Mark Robarts, that he did not go to that supper-party. It was eleven o'clock before they sat down, and nearly two before the gentlemen were in bed. It must be remembered that he had to preach, on the coming Sunday morning, a charity sermon on behalf of a mission to Mr. Harold Smith's islanders; and, to tell the truth, it was a task for which he had now very little inclination.
When first invited to do this, he had regarded the task seriously enough, as he always did regard such work, and he completed his sermon for the occasion before he left Framley; but, since that, an air of ridicule had been thrown over the whole affair, in which he had joined without much thinking of his own sermon, and this made him now heartily wish that he could choose a discourse upon any other subject.
He knew well that the very points on which he had most insisted were those which had drawn most mirth from Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Smith, and had oftenest provoked his own laughter; and how was he now to preach on those matters in a fitting mood, knowing, as he would
