‘Signora,’ said he at last, trying to speak in a tone of dignified reproach, ‘you really permit yourself to talk on such solemn subjects in a very improper way.’

‘Solemn subjects—what solemn subjects? Surely a dean’s hat is not such a solemn subject.’

‘I have no aspirations such as those you impute to me. Perhaps you will drop the subject.’

‘Oh, certainly, Mr Slope; but one word first. Go to her again with the prime minister’s letter in your pocket. I’ll wager my shawl to your shovel she does not refuse you then.’

‘I must say, signora, that I think you are speaking of the lady in a very unjustifiable manner.’

‘And one other piece of advice, Mr Slope; I’ll only offer you one other;’ and then she commenced singing—

‘Ha, ha, ha!’

And the signora, throwing herself back on her sofa, laughed merrily. She little recked how those who heard her would, in their own imagination, fill up the little history of Mr Slope’s first love. She little cared that some among them might attribute to her the honour of his earlier admiration. She was tired of Mr Slope and wanted to get rid of him; she had ground for anger with him, and she chose to be revenged.

How Mr Slope got out of that room he never himself knew. He did succeed ultimately, and probably with some assistance, in getting him his had and escaping into the air. At last his love for the signora was cured. Whenever he again thought of her in his dreams, it was not as of an angel with azure wings. He connected her rather with fire and brimstone, and though he could still believe her to be a spirit, he banished her entirely out of heaven, and found a place for her among the infernal gods. When he weighed in the balance, as he not seldom did, the two women to whom he had attached himself in Barchester, the pre–eminent place in his soul’s hatred was usually allotted to the signora.