The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER IX

GRACE CRAW­LEY GOES TO ALLING­TON

The tid­ings of what had been done by the mag­is­trates at their pet­ty ses­sions was com­mu­ni­cat­ed the same night to Grace Craw­ley by Miss Pret­ty­man. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man had heard the news with­in five min­utes of the ex­ecu­tion of the bail-​bond, and had rushed to her sis­ter with in­for­ma­tion as to the event. ‘They have found him guilty; they have, in­deed. They have con­vict­ed him–or what­ev­er it is, be­cause he couldn’t say where he got it.’ ‘You do not mean that they have sent him to prison?’ ‘No;–not to prison; not as yet, that is. I don’t un­der­stand it al­to­geth­er; but he’s to be tried again in the as­sizes. In the mean­time he’s to be out on bail. Ma­jor Grant­ly is to be the bail–and Mr Ro­barts. That, I think, was very nice of him.’ It was un­doubt­ed­ly the fact that Miss Anne Pret­ty­man had re­ceived an ac­ces­sion of plea­sur­able emo­tion when she learned that Mr Craw­ley had not been sent away scathe­less, but had been con­demned, as it were, to pub­lic tri­al at the as­sizes. And yet she would have done any­thing in her pow­er to save Grace Craw­ley, or even to save her fa­ther. And it must be ex­plained that Miss Anne Pret­ty­man was sup­posed to be spe­cial­ly ef­fi­cient in teach­ing Ro­man his­to­ry to her pupils, al­though she was so man­ifest­ly ig­no­rant of the course of the law in the coun­try in which she lived. ‘Com­mit­ted him,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man, cor­rect­ing her sis­ter with scorn. ‘They have not con­vict­ed him. Had they con­vict­ed him there would be no ques­tion of bail.’ ‘I don’t know how that all is, Annabel­la, but at any rate Ma­jor Grant­ly is to be the bails­man, and there is to be an­oth­er tri­al at Barch­ester.’ ‘There can­not be more than one tri­al in a crim­inal case,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man, ‘un­less the ju­ry should dis­agree, or some­thing of that kind. I sup­pose he has been com­mit­ted and the tri­al will take place at the as­sizes.’ ‘Ex­act­ly–that’s just it.’ Had Lord Lufton ap­peared as lic­tor and had Thomp­son car­ried the fasces, Miss Anne would have known more about it.

The sad tid­ings were not told to Grace till the evening. Mrs Craw­ley, when the in­quiry was over be­fore the mag­is­trates, would fain have had her­self driv­en to the Miss Pret­ty­man’s school, that she might see her daugh­ter; but she felt that to be im­pos­si­ble while her hus­band was in her charge. The fa­ther would of course have gone to his child, had the vis­it been sug­gest­ed to him; but that would have caused an­oth­er ter­ri­ble scene; and the moth­er, con­sid­er­ing it all in her mind, thought it bet­ter to ab­stain. Miss Pret­ty­man did her best to make poor Grace think that the af­fair had so far gone favourably–did her best, that is, with­out say­ing any­thing which her con­science told her to be false. ‘It is to be set­tled at the as­sizes in April,’ she said.

‘In the mean­time what will be­come of pa­pa?’

‘Your pa­pa will be at home, just as usu­al. He must have some­one to ad­vise him. I dare­say it would have been all over now if he would have em­ployed an at­tor­ney.’

‘But it seems so hard that an at­tor­ney should be want­ed.’

‘My dear Grace, things in this world are hard.’

‘But they are al­ways hard­er for poor pa­pa and mam­ma than for any­body else.’ In an­swer to this Miss Pret­ty­man made some re­marks in­tend­ed to be wise and kind at the same time. Grace, whose eyes were laden with tears, made no im­me­di­ate re­ply to this, but re­vert­ed to her for­mer state­ment that she must go home. ‘I can­not re­main, Miss Pret­ty­man, I am so un­hap­py.’

‘Will you be more hap­py at home?’

‘I can bear it bet­ter there.’

The poor girl soon learned from the in­tend­ed con­so­la­tions of those around her, from the ill-​con­sid­ered kind­ness of the pupils, and from words which fell from the ser­vants, that her fa­ther had in fact been judged to be guilty, as far as judg­ment had as yet gone. ‘They do say, miss, it’s on­ly be­cause he hadn’t a lawyer,’ said the house-​keep­er. And if men so kind as Lord Lufton and Mr Walk­er had made him out to be guilty, what could be ex­pect­ed from a stern judge down from Lon­don, who would know noth­ing about her poor fa­ther and his pe­cu­liar­ities, and from twelve ju­ry­men who would be shop­keep­ers out of Barch­ester. It would kill her fa­ther, and then it would kill her moth­er; and af­ter that it would kill her al­so. And there was no mon­ey in the house at home. She knew it well. She had been paid three pounds a month for her ser­vices at the school, and the mon­ey for the last two months had been sent to her moth­er. Yet, bad­ly as she want­ed any­thing that she might be able to earn, she knew that she could not go on teach­ing. It had come to be ac­knowl­edged by both the Miss Pret­ty­mans that any teach­ing on her part at the present was im­pos­si­ble. She would go home and per­ish with the rest of them. There was no room left for hope to her, or to any of her fam­ily. They had ac­cused her fa­ther of be­ing a com­mon thief–her fa­ther whom she knew to be so nobly hon­est, her fa­ther whom she be­lieved to be among the most de­vot­ed of God’s ser­vants. He was ac­cused of a pal­try theft, and the mag­is­trates and lawyers and po­lice­men among them had de­cid­ed that the ac­cu­sa­tion was true! How could she look the girls in the face af­ter that, or at­tempt to hold her own among the teach­ers!

On the next morn­ing there came a let­ter from Miss Lily Dale, and with that in her hand she again went to Miss Pret­ty­man. She must go home, she said. She must at any rate go to her moth­er. Could Miss Pret­ty­man be kind enough to send her home. ‘I haven’t six­pence to pay for any­thing,’ she said, burst­ing in­to tears; ‘and I haven’t a right to ask for it.’ Then the state­ments which Miss Pret­ty­man made in her ea­ger­ness to cov­er this lat­ter mis­for­tune were de­cid­ed­ly false. There was so much mon­ey ow­ing to Grace, she said; mon­ey for this, mon­ey for that, mon­ey for any­thing or noth­ing! Ten pounds would hard­ly clear the ac­count. ‘No­body owes me any­thing; but if you’ll lend me five shillings!’ said Grace, in her agony. Miss Pret­ty­man, as she made her way through this dif­fi­cul­ty, thought of Ma­jor Grant­ly and his love. It would have been of no use, she knew. Had she brought them to­geth­er on that Mon­day, Grace would have said noth­ing to him. In­deed such a meet­ing at such a time would have been im­prop­er. But, re­gard­ing Ma­jor Grant­ly, as she did, in the light of a mil­lion­aire–for the wealth of the Archdea­con was no­to­ri­ous–she could not but think it a pity that poor Grace should be beg­ging for five shillings. ‘You need not at any rate trou­ble your­self about mon­ey, Grace,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man. ‘What is a pound or two more or less be­tween you and me? It is al­most un­kind of you to think about it. Is that let­ter in your hand any­thing for me to see, my dear?’ Then Grace ex­plained that she did not wish to show Miss Dale’s let­ter, but that Miss Dale had asked her to go to Alling­ton. ‘And you will go,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man. ‘It will be the best thing for you, and the best thing for your moth­er.’

It was at last de­cid­ed that Grace should go to her friend at Alling­ton, and to Alling­ton she went. She re­turned home for a day or two, and was per­suad­ed by her moth­er to ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion that had been giv­en her. At Hog­gle­stock, while she was there, new trou­bles came up, of which some­thing will short­ly be told; but they were trou­bles in which Grace could give no as­sis­tance to her moth­er, and which, in­deed, though they were in truth trou­bles, as will be seen, were so far benef­icent that they stirred her fa­ther up to a cer­tain ac­tion which was in it­self salu­tary. ‘I think it will be bet­ter that you should be away, dear­est,’ said her moth­er, who now, for the first time, heard plain­ly what poor Grace had to tell about Ma­jor Grant­ly;–Grace hav­ing, hereto­fore, bare­ly spo­ken, in most am­bigu­ous words, of Ma­jor Grant­ly as a gen­tle­man whom she had met at Fram­ley, and whom she had de­scribed as be­ing ‘very nice’.

In old days, long ago, Lucy Ro­barts, the present La­dy Lufton, sis­ter of the Rev Mark Ro­barts, the par­son of Fram­ley, had so­journed for a while un­der Mrs Craw­ley’s roof at Hog­gle­stock. Pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances, which need not, per­haps, be told here, had giv­en oc­ca­sion for the vis­it. She had then re­solved–for her fu­ture des­tiny been known to her be­fore she had left Mrs Craw­ley’s house–that she would in com­ing days do much to be­friend the fam­ily of her friend; but the do­ing of much had been very dif­fi­cult. And the do­ing of any­thing had come to be very dif­fi­cult through a cer­tain in­dis­cre­tion on Lord Lufton’s part. Lord Lufton had of­fered as­sis­tance, pe­cu­niary as­sis­tance to Mr Craw­ley, which Mr Craw­ley had re­ject­ed with out­spo­ken anger. What was Lord Lufton to him that his lord­ship should dare to come to him with his pal­try mon­ey in his hand? But af­ter a while, La­dy Lufton, ex­er­cis­ing some cun­ning in the op­er­ation of her friend­ship, had per­suad­ed her sis­ter-​in-​law at the Fram­ley par­son­age to have Grace Craw­ley over there as a vis­itor–and there she had been dur­ing the sum­mer hol­idays pre­vi­ous to the com­mence­ment of our sto­ry. And there, at Fram­ley, she had be­come ac­quaint­ed with Ma­jor Grant­ly, who was stay­ing with Lord Lufton at Fram­ley Court. She had then said some­thing to her moth­er about Ma­jor Grant­ly, some­thing am­bigu­ous, some­thing about his be­ing ‘very nice’, and the moth­er had thought how great was the pity that her daugh­ter, who was ‘nice’ too in her es­ti­ma­tion, should have had so few of those ad­juncts to as­sist her which come from full pock­ets. She had thought no more about it then; but now she felt her­self con­strained to think more. ‘I don’t quite un­der­stand why he should have come to Miss Pret­ty­man on Mon­day,’ said Grace, ‘be­cause he hard­ly knows her at all.’

‘I sup­pose it was on busi­ness,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘No, mam­ma, it was not on busi­ness.’

‘How can you tell, dear?’

‘Be­cause Miss Pret­ty­man said it was–to ask af­ter me. Oh, mam­ma, I must tell you. I know he did like me.’

‘Did he ev­er say so to you, dear­est?’

‘Yes, mam­ma.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

‘I told him noth­ing, mam­ma.’

‘And did he ask to see you on Mon­day?’

‘No, mam­ma; I don’t think he did. I think he un­der­stood it all too well, for I could not have spo­ken to him then.’

Mrs Craw­ley pur­sued her cross-​ex­am­ina­tion no fur­ther, but made up her mind that it would be bet­ter that her girl should be away from her wretched home dur­ing this pe­ri­od of her life. If it were writ­ten in the book of fate that one of her chil­dren should be ex­empt­ed from the se­ries of mis­for­tunes which seemed to fall, on af­ter an­oth­er, al­most as a mat­ter of course, up­on her hus­band, up­on her, and up­on her fam­ily; if so great a good for­tune were in store for her Grace as such a mar­riage as this which seemed to be so near­ly of­fered to her, it might prob­ably be well that Grace should be as lit­tle at home as pos­si­ble. Mrs Craw­ley had heard noth­ing but good of Ma­jor Grant­ly; but she knew that the Grantlys were proud rich peo­ple–who lived with their heads high up in the coun­ty–and it could hard­ly be that a son of the archdea­con would like to take his bride di­rect from Hog­gle­stock par­son­age.

It was set­tled that Grace should go to Alling­ton as soon as a let­ter could be re­ceived from Miss Dale in re­turn to Grace’s note, and on the third morn­ing af­ter her ar­rival at home she start­ed. None but they who have them­selves been poor gen­try–gen­try so poor as not to know how to raise a shilling–can un­der­stand the pe­cu­liar bit­ter­ness of the tri­als which such pover­ty pro­duces. The pover­ty of the nor­mal poor does not ap­proach it; or, rather, the pangs aris­ing from such pover­ty are al­to­geth­er of a dif­fer­ent sort. To be hun­gry and have no food, to be cold and have no fu­el, to be threat­ened with dis­traint for one’s few chairs and ta­bles, and with the loss of the roof over one’s head–all these mis­eries, which, if they do not pos­itive­ly reach, are so fre­quent­ly near to reach­ing the nor­mal poor, are, no doubt, the sever­est of the tri­als to which hu­man­ity is sub­ject­ed. They threat­en life–or, if not life, then lib­er­ty–re­duc­ing the ab­ject one to a choice be­tween cap­tiv­ity or star­va­tion. By hook or crook, the poor gen­tle­man or poor la­dy–let the one or the oth­er be so poor–does not of­ten come to the last ex­trem­ity of the work­house. There are such cas­es, but they are ex­cep­tion­al. Mrs Craw­ley, through all her suf­fer­ings, had nev­er yet found her cup­board to be ab­so­lute­ly bare, or the bread-​pan to be ac­tu­al­ly emp­ty. But there are pangs to which, at the time, star­va­tion it­self would seem to be prefer­able. The an­gry eyes of the un­paid trades­man, sav­age with anger which one knows to be jus­ti­fi­able; the taunt of the poor ser­vant who wants her wages; the grad­ual re­lin­quish­ment of habits which the soft nur­ture of ear­li­er, kinder years had made sec­ond na­ture; the wan cheeks of the wife whose mal­ady de­mands wine; the rags of the hus­band whose out­ward oc­cu­pa­tions de­mand de­cen­cy; the ne­glect­ed chil­dren, who are learn­ing not be the chil­dren of gen­tle­folk; and, worse than all, the alms and doles of half-​gen­er­ous friends, the wan­ing pride, the pride that will not wane, the grow­ing doubt whether it be not bet­ter to bow the head, and ac­knowl­edge to all the world that noth­ing of the pride of sta­tion is left–that the hand is open to re­ceive and ready to touch the cap, that the fall from the up­per to the low­er lev­el has been ac­com­plished–these are the pangs of pover­ty which drive the Craw­leys of the world to the fre­quent en­ter­tain­ing of that idea of the bare bod­kin. It was set­tled that Grace should go to Alling­ton;–but how about her clothes? And then, whence was to come the mon­ey for the jour­ney?

‘I don’t think they’ll mind about my be­ing shab­by at Alling­ton. They live very qui­et­ly there.’

‘But you say that Miss Dale is so very nice in all her ways.’

‘Lily is very nice, mam­ma; but I shan’t mind her so much as her moth­er, be­cause she knows it all. I have told her ev­ery­thing.’

‘But you have giv­en me all your mon­ey, dear­est.’

‘Miss Pret­ty­man told me I was to come to her,’ said Grace, who had al­ready tak­en some from the schoolmistress, which at once had gone in­to moth­er’s pock­et, and in­to house­hold pur­pos­es. ‘She said I should be sure to go to Alling­ton, and that of course I should go to her, as I must pass through Sil­ver­bridge.’

‘I hope pa­pa will not ask about it,’ said Mrs Craw­ley. Luck­ily pa­pa did not ask about it, be­ing at the mo­ment oc­cu­pied much with oth­er thoughts and oth­er trou­bles, and Grace was al­lowed to re­turn by Sil­ver­bridge, and to take what was need­ed from Miss Pret­ty­man. Who can tell of the mend­ing and patch­ing, of the very wear­ing mid­night hours of needle­work which were ac­com­plished be­fore the poor girl went, so that she might not reach her friend’s house in ac­tu­al rags? And when the world was end­ed, what was there to show for it? I do not think that the idea of the bare bod­kin, as re­gard­ed her­self, ev­er flit­ted across Miss Craw­ley’s brain–she be­ing one of those who are very strong to en­dure; but it must have oc­curred to her very of­ten that the re­pose of the grave is sweet, and that there cometh af­ter death a lev­el­ling and mak­ing even of things, which would at last cure all her evils.

Grace no doubt looked for­ward to a lev­el­ling and mak­ing even of things–or per­haps to some­thing more pros­per­ous than that, which should come to her re­lief on this side of the grave. She could not but have high hopes in re­gard to her fu­ture des­tiny. Al­though, as has been said, she un­der­stood no more than she ought to have un­der­stood from Miss Pret­ty­man’s ac­count of the con­ver­sa­tion with Ma­jor Grant­ly, still, in­no­cent as she was, she had un­der­stood much. She knew that the man loved her, and she knew al­so that she loved the man. She thor­ough­ly com­pre­hend­ed that the present could be to her no time for lis­ten­ing to speech­es of love, or for giv­ing kind an­swers; but still I think that she did look for re­lief on this side of the grave.

‘Tut, tut,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man, as Grace in vain tried to con­ceal her tears up in the pri­vate sanc­tum. ‘You ought to know me by this time, and to have learned that I can un­der­stand things.’ The tears had flown in re­turn not on­ly for the five gold sovereigns which Miss Pret­ty­man had pressed in­to her hand, but on ac­count of the pret­ti­est, soft, grey meri­no frock that ev­er charmed a girl’s eye. ‘I should like to know how many girls I have giv­en dress­es to, when they have been go­ing out vis­it­ing. Law, my dear; they take them, many of them, from us old maids, al­most as if we were on­ly pay­ing our debts in giv­ing them.’ And then Miss Anne gave her a cloth cloak, very warm, with pret­ty but­tons and gimp trim­mings–just such a cloak as any girl might like to wear who thought that she would be seen out walk­ing with her Ma­jor Grant­ly on a Christ­mas morn­ing. Grace Craw­ley did not ex­pect to be seen out walk­ing by her Ma­jor Grant­ly, but nev­er­the­less she liked the cloak. By the pow­er of her prac­ti­cal will, and by her true sym­pa­thy, the el­der Miss Pret­ty­man had for a while con­quered the an­noy­ance, which on Grace’s part, was at­tached to the re­ceiv­ing of gifts, by the con­scious­ness of her pover­ty; and when Miss Anne, with some pride in the tone of her voice, ex­pressed a hope that Grace would think the cloak pret­ty, Grace put her arms pleas­ant­ly round her friend’s neck, and de­clared that it was very pret­ty–the pret­ti­est cloak in all the world!

Grace was met at the Guest­wick rail­way sta­tion by her friend Lily Dale, and was driv­en over to Alling­ton in a pony car­riage be­long­ing to Lily’s un­cle, the squire of the parish. I think she will be ex­cused in hav­ing put on her new cloak, not so much be­cause of the cold as with a view of mak­ing the best of her­self be­fore Mrs Dale. And yet she knew Mrs Dale would know all the cir­cum­stances of her pover­ty, and was very glad that it should be so. ‘I am so glad that you have come, my dear,’ said Lily. ‘It will be such a com­fort.’

‘I am sure you are very good,’ said Grace.

‘And mam­ma is so glad. From the mo­ment that we both talked our­selves in­to ea­ger­ness about it–while I was writ­ing my let­ter, you know, we re­solved that it must be so.’

‘I’m afraid I shall be a great trou­ble to Mrs Dale.’

‘A trou­ble to mam­ma! In­deed you will not. You shall be a trou­ble to no one but me. I will have all the trou­ble my­self, and the labour I de­light in shall be physic to my pain.’

Grace Craw­ley could not dur­ing the jour­ney be at home and at ease even with her friend Lily. She was go­ing to a strange house un­der strange cir­cum­stances. Her fa­ther had not in­deed been tried and found guilty of theft, but the charge of theft had been made against him, and the mag­is­trates be­fore whom it had been made had thought the charge was true. Grace knew all the news­pa­pers had told the sto­ry, and was of course aware that Mrs Dale would have heard it. Her own mind was full of it, and though she dread­ed to speak of it, yet she could not be silent. Miss Dale, who un­der­stood much of this, en­deav­oured to talk her friend in­to eas­iness; but she feared to be­gin up­on the one sub­ject, and be­fore the drive was over they were, both of them, too cold for much con­ver­sa­tion. ‘There’s mam­ma,’ said Miss Dale as they drove up, turn­ing out of the street of the vil­lage to the door of Mrs Dale’s house. ‘She al­ways knows by in­stinct, when I am com­ing. You must un­der­stand now that you are among us, that mam­ma and I are not moth­er and daugh­ter, but two lov­ing old ladies liv­ing to­geth­er in peace and har­mo­ny. We do have our quar­rels–whether the chick­en shall be roast or boiled, but nev­er any­thing be­yond that. Mam­ma, here is Grace, starved to death; and she says if you don’t give her some tea she will go back at once.’

‘I will give her some tea,’ said Mrs Dale.

‘And I am worse than she is, be­cause I’ve been driv­ing. It’s all up with Bertram and Mr Green for the next week at least. It is freez­ing as hard as it can freeze, and they might as well try to hunt in La­pland as here.’

‘They’ll con­sole them­selves with skat­ing,’ said Mrs Dale.

‘Have you ev­er ob­served, Grace,’ said Miss Dale,’ how much amuse­ment gen­tle­men re­quire, and how im­per­ative it is that some oth­er game should be pro­vid­ed when one game fails?’

‘Not par­tic­ular­ly,’ said Grace.

‘Oh, but it is so. Now, with wom­en, it is sup­posed that they can amuse them­selves or live with­out amuse­ment. Once or twice in a year, per­haps some­thing is done for them. There is an ar­row-​shoot­ing par­ty, or a ball, or a pic­nic. But the cater­ing for men’s sport is nev­er end­ing, and is al­ways paramount to ev­ery­thing else. And yet the pet game of the day nev­er goes off prop­er­ly. In par­tridge time, the par­tridges are wild, and won’t come to be killed. In hunt­ing time the fox­es won’t run straight –the wretch­es. They show no spir­it, and will take to ground to save their brush­es. Then comes a nip­ping frost, and skat­ing is pro­claimed; but the ice is al­ways rough, and the wood­cocks have de­sert­ed the coun­try. And as for salmon–when the sum­mer comes round I do re­al­ly be­lieve that they suf­fer a great deal about the salmon. I’m sure they nev­er catch any. So they go back to their clubs and their cards, and their bil­liards, and abuse their cooks and black­ball their friends. That’s about it, mam­ma; is it not?’

‘You know more about it than I do, my dear.’

‘Be­cause I have to lis­ten to Bertram, as you nev­er will do. We’ve got such a Mr Green down here, Grace. He’s such a duck of a man–such top-​boots and all the rest of it. And yet they whis­per to me that he doesn’t al­ways ride to hounds. And to see him play bil­liards is beau­ti­ful, on­ly he can nev­er make a stroke. I hope you play bil­liards, Grace, be­cause un­cle Christo­pher has just had a new ta­ble put up.’

‘I nev­er saw a bil­liard-​ta­ble yet,’ said Grace.

‘Then Mr Green shall teach you. He’ll do any­thing that you ask him. If you don’t ap­prove the colour of the ball, he’ll go to Lon­don to get you an­oth­er one. On­ly you must be very care­ful about say­ing that you like any­thing be­fore him, as he’ll be sure to have it for you the next day. Mam­ma hap­pened to say that she want­ed a four-​pen­ny postage stamp, and he walked off to Guest­wick to get it for her in­stant­ly, al­though it was lunch-​time.’

‘He did noth­ing of the kind, Lily,’ said her moth­er. ‘He was go­ing to Guest­wick, and was very good-​na­tured, and brought me back a postage-​stamp that I want­ed.’

‘Of course he’s good-​na­tured, I know that. And there’s my cousin Bertram. He’s Cap­tain Dale, you know. But he prefers to be called Mr Dale, be­cause he has left the army, and has set up as ju­nior squire of the parish. Un­cle Christo­pher is the re­al squire; on­ly Bertram does all the work. And now you know all about us. I’m afraid you’ll find us dull enough–un­less you can take a fan­cy to Mr Green.’

‘Does Mr Green live here?’

‘No; he does not live here. I nev­er heard of his liv­ing any­where. He was some­thing once, but I don’t know what; and I don’t think he’s any­thing now in par­tic­ular. But he’s Bertram’s friend, and like most men, as one sees them, he nev­er has much to do. Does Ma­jor Grant­ly ev­er go forth to fight his coun­try’s bat­tles?’ This last ques­tion she asked in a low whis­per, so that the words did not reach her moth­er. Grace blushed up to her eyes, how­ev­er, as she an­swered–’I think Ma­jor Grant­ly has left the army.’

‘We shall get round her in a day or two, mam­ma,’ said Lily Dale to her moth­er that night. ‘I’m sure it will be the best thing to force her out of her trou­bles.’

‘I would not use too much force on her, dear.’

‘Things are bet­ter when they are talked about. I’m sure they are. And it will be good to make her ac­cus­tomed to speak of Ma­jor Grant­ly. From what Mary Walk­er tells me, he cer­tain­ly means it. And if so, she should be ready for it when it comes.’

‘Do not make her ready for what may nev­er come.’

‘No, mam­ma; but she is at present such a child that she knows noth­ing of her pow­ers. She should be made to un­der­stand that it is pos­si­ble that even a Ma­jor Grant­ly may think him­self for­tu­nate in be­ing al­lowed to love her.’

‘I should leave that to Na­ture, if I were you,’ said Mrs Dale.