The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory denouement.  By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel’s success had convinced her of her vocation.  She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the purpose of her new book.  Experience had shown her that where she had fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding in guarded terms to the drawing-room shovel.  She was determined not to repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her coming novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale, however likely it was to receive this crowning evidence of success.

She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst into song and the ceremony of the unveiling began.  The Bishop, almost always felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex, was never more so than when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his cherished purposes.  There was a peculiar mixture of Christian humility and episcopal exultation in the manner with which he called attention to the Creator’s promptness in responding to his demand for funds, and he had never been more happily inspired than in eulogizing the mysterious gift of the chantry window.

Though no hint of the donor’s identity had been allowed to escape him, it was generally understood that the Bishop knew who had given the window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense the possible announcement of a name.  None came, however, though the Bishop deliciously titillated the curiosity of his flock by circling ever closer about the interesting secret.  He would not disguise from them, he said, that the heart which had divined his inmost wish had been a woman’s—­is it not to woman’s intuitions that more than half the happiness of earth is owing?  What man is obliged to learn by the laborious process of experience, woman’s wondrous instinct tells her at a glance; and so it had been with this cherished scheme, this unhoped-for completion of their beautiful chantry.  So much, at least, he was allowed to reveal; and indeed, had he not done so, the window itself would have spoken for him, since the first glance at its touching subject and exquisite design would show it to have originated in a woman’s heart.  This tribute to the sex was received with an audible sigh of contentment, and the Bishop, always stimulated by such evidence of his sway over his hearers, took up his theme with gathering eloquence.

Yes—­a woman’s heart had planned the gift, a woman’s hand had executed it, and, might he add, without too far withdrawing the veil in which Christian beneficence ever loved to drape its acts—­might he add that, under Providence, a book, a simple book, a mere tale, in fact, had had its share in the good work for which they were assembled to give thanks?