The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER VII

MISS PRET­TY­MAN’S PRI­VATE ROOM

Ma­jor Grant­ly, when threat­ened by his fa­ther with pe­cu­niary pun­ish­ment, should he de­mean him­self by such a mar­riage as that he had pro­posed to him­self, had de­clared that he would of­fer his hand to Miss Craw­ley on the next morn­ing. This, how­ev­er, he had not done. He had not done it, part­ly be­cause he did not quite be­lieve his fa­ther’s threat, and part­ly be­cause he felt that that threat was al­most jus­ti­fied–for the present mo­ment–by the cir­cum­stances in which Grace Craw­ley’s fa­ther had placed him­self.

Hen­ry Grant­ly ac­knowl­edged, as he drove him­self home on the morn­ing af­ter his din­ner at the rec­to­ry, that in this mat­ter of his mar­riage he did owe much to his fam­ily. Should he mar­ry at all, he owed it to them to mar­ry a la­dy. And Grace Craw­ley–so he told him­self–was a la­dy. And he owed it to them to bring among them as his wife a wom­an who should not dis­grace him or them by her ed­uca­tion, man­ners, or even by her per­son­al ap­pear­ance. In all these re­spects Grace Craw­ley was, in his judg­ment, quite as good as they had a right to ex­pect her to be, and in some re­spects a great deal su­pe­ri­or to that type of wom­an­hood with which they had been most gen­er­al­ly con­ver­sant. ‘If ev­ery­body had her due, my sis­ter isn’t fit to hold a can­dle to her,’ he said to him­self. It must be ac­knowl­edged, there­fore, that he was re­al­ly in love with Grace Craw­ley; and he de­clared to him­self over and over again, that his fam­ily had no right to de­mand that he should mar­ry a wom­an with mon­ey. The archdea­con’s son by no means de­spised mon­ey. How could he, hav­ing come forth as a bird fledged from such a nest as the rec­to­ry at Plum­stead Epis­copi? Be­fore he had been brought by his bet­ter na­ture and true judg­ment to see that Grace Craw­ley was the greater wom­an of the two, he had near­ly sub­mit­ted him­self to the twen­ty thou­sand pounds of Miss Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble–to that, and her good-​hu­mour and rosy fresh­ness com­bined. But he re­gard­ed him­self as the well-​to-​do son of a very rich fa­ther. His on­ly child was am­ply pro­vid­ed for; and he felt that, as re­gard­ed mon­ey, he had a right to do as he pleased. He felt this with dou­ble strength af­ter his fa­ther’s threat.

But he had no right to make a mar­riage by which his fam­ily would be dis­graced. Whether he was right or wrong in sup­pos­ing that he would dis­grace his fam­ily were he to mar­ry the daugh­ter of a con­vict­ed thief, it is hard­ly nec­es­sary to dis­cuss here. He told him­self that it would be so–telling him­self al­so that, by the stern laws of the world, the son and the daugh­ter must pay for the of­fence of the fa­ther and moth­er. Even among the poor, who would will­ing­ly mar­ry the child of a man who had been hanged? But he car­ried the ar­gu­ment be­yond this, think­ing much of the mat­ter, and en­deav­our­ing to think of it not on­ly just­ly but gen­er­ous­ly. If the ac­cu­sa­tion against Craw­ley were false–if the man were be­ing in­jured by an un­just charge–even if he, Grant­ly, could make him­self think that the girl’s fa­ther had not stolen the mon­ey, then he would dare ev­ery­thing and go on. I do not know that his ar­gu­ment was good, or that his mind was log­ical on the mat­ter. He ought to have felt that his own judg­ment as to the man’s guilt was less like­ly to be cor­rect than that of those whose du­ty it was and would be to form and to ex­press a judg­ment on the mat­ter; and as to Grace her­self, she was equal­ly in­no­cent whether her fa­ther were guilty or not guilty. If he were to be de­barred from ask­ing for her hand by his feel­ings for her fa­ther and moth­er, he should hard­ly have trust­ed to his own skill in as­cer­tain­ing the re­al truth as to the al­leged theft. But he was not log­ical, and thus, mean­ing to be gen­er­ous, he be­came un­just.

He found that among those in Sil­ver­bridge whom he pre­sumed to be best in­formed on such mat­ters, there was a grow­ing opin­ion that Mr Craw­ley had stolen the mon­ey. He was in­ti­mate with all the Walk­ers, and was able to find out that Mrs Walk­er knew that her hus­band be­lieved in the cler­gy­man’s guilt. He was by no means alone in his will­ing­ness to ac­cept Mr Walk­er’s opin­ion as the true opin­ion. Sil­ver­bridge, gen­er­al­ly, was en­deav­our­ing to dress it­self in Mr Walk­er’s glass, and to be­lieve as Mr Walk­er be­lieved. The ladies of Sil­ver­bridge, in­clud­ing the Miss Pret­ty­mans, were aware that Mr Walk­er had been very kind both to Mr and Mrs Craw­ley, and ar­gued from this that Mr Walk­er must think the man in­no­cent. But Hen­ry Grant­ly, who did not dare to ask a di­rect ques­tion of the so­lic­itor, went cun­ning­ly to work, and clos­et­ed him­self with Mrs Walk­er–with Mrs Walk­er, who knew well of the good for­tune that was hov­er­ing over Grace’s head and was so near­ly set­tling it­self on her shoul­ders. She would have giv­en a fin­ger to be able to white­wash Mr Craw­ley in the ma­jor’s es­ti­ma­tion. Nor must it be sup­posed that she told the ma­jor in plain words that her hus­band had con­vinced him­self of the man’s guilt. In plain words no ques­tion was asked be­tween them, and in plain words no opin­ion was ex­pressed. But there was the look of sor­row in the wom­an’s eye, there was the ab­sence of ref­er­ence to her hus­band’s as­sur­ance that the man was in­no­cent, there was the air of set­tled grief which told of her own con­vic­tion; and the ma­jor left her, con­vinced that Mrs Walk­er be­lieved Mr Craw­ley to be guilty.

Then he went to Barch­ester; not open-​mouthed with in­quiry, but rather with open ears, and it seemed to him that all men in Barch­ester were of one mind. There was a coun­ty-​club in Barch­ester, and at this coun­ty-​club nine men out of ten were talk­ing about Mr Craw­ley. It was by no means nec­es­sary that a man should ask ques­tions on the sub­ject. Opin­ion was ex­pressed so freely that no such ask­ing was re­quired; and opin­ion in Barch­ester–at any rate in the coun­ty-​club–seemed now to be all of one mind. There had been ev­ery dis­po­si­tion at first to be­lieve Mr Craw­ley to be in­no­cent. He had been be­lieved to be in­no­cent even af­ter he had said wrong­ly that the cheque had been paid to him by Mr Soames; but he had since stat­ed that he had re­ceived it from Dean Ara­bin, and that state­ment was al­so shown to be false. A man who has a cheque changed on his own be­half is bound at least to show where he got the cheque. Mr Craw­ley had not on­ly failed to do this, but had giv­en two false ex­cus­es. Hen­ry Grant­ly, as he drove home to Sil­ver­bridge on the Sun­day af­ter­noon, summed up all the ev­idence in his own mind, and brought in a ver­dict of Guilty against the fa­ther of the girl whom he loved.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing he walked in­to Sil­ver­bridge and called at Miss Pret­ty­man’s house. As he went along his heart was warmer to­wards Grace than it had ev­er been be­fore. He had told him­self that he was now bound to ab­stain, for his fa­ther’s sake, from do­ing that which he had told his fa­ther he cer­tain­ly would do. But he knew al­so, that he had said that which, though it did not bind him to Miss Craw­ley, gave her a right to ex­pect that he would so bind him­self. And Miss Pret­ty­man could not but be aware of what his in­ten­tion had been, and could not but ex­pect that he should not be ex­plic­it. Had he been a wise man al­to­geth­er, he would prob­ably have ab­stained from say­ing any­thing at the present mo­ment–a wise man, that is, in the ways and feel­ings of the world in such mat­ters. But, as there are men who will al­low them­selves all imag­in­able lat­itude in their treat­ment of wom­en, be­liev­ing that the world will con­done any amount of fault of that na­ture, so there are oth­er men, and a class of men which on the whole is the more nu­mer­ous of the two, who are trem­bling­ly alive to the dan­ger of cen­sure on this head–and to the dan­ger of cen­sure not on­ly from oth­ers but from them­selves al­so. Ma­jor Grant­ly had done that which made him think it im­per­ative up­on him to do some­thing fur­ther, and do that some­thing at once.

There­fore he start­ed off on the Mon­day morn­ing af­ter break­fast and walked in­to Sil­ver­bridge, and as he walked he built var­ious cas­tles in the air. Why should he not mar­ry Grace–if she would have him–and take her away be­yond the reach of her fa­ther’s calami­ty? Why should he not throw over his own peo­ple al­to­geth­er, mon­ey, po­si­tion, so­ci­ety, and all, and give him­self up to love? Were he to do so, men might say that he was fool­ish, but no one could hint that he was dis­hon­ourable. His spir­it was high enough to teach him to think that such con­duct on his part would have in it some­thing of mag­nif­icence; but, yet, such was not his pur­pose. In go­ing to Miss Pret­ty­man it was his in­ten­tion to apol­ogise for not do­ing this mag­nif­icent thing. His mind was quite made up. Nev­er­the­less he built cas­tles in the air.

It so hap­pened that he en­coun­tered the younger Miss Pret­ty­man in the hall. It would not at all have suit­ed him to re­veal to her the pur­port of his vis­it, or ask her to as­sist his suit or re­ceive his apolo­gies. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man was too com­mon a per­son­age in the Sil­ver­bridge world to be fit for such em­ploy­ment. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man was, in­deed, her­self sub­mis­sive to him, and treat­ed him with the cour­tesy which is due to a su­pe­ri­or be­ing. He there­fore sim­ply asked her whether he could be al­lowed to see her sis­ter.

‘Sure­ly, Ma­jor Grant­ly;–that is, I think so. It is a lit­tle ear­ly, but I think she can re­ceive you.’

‘It is ear­ly, I know; but as I want to say a word or two on busi­ness–’

‘Oh, on busi­ness. I am sure she will see you on busi­ness; she will on­ly be too proud. If you will be kind enough to step in here for two min­utes.’ Then Miss Anne, hav­ing de­posit­ed the ma­jor in the lit­tle par­lour, ran up­stairs with her mes­sage to her sis­ter. ‘Of course it’s about Grace Craw­ley’ she said to her­self as she went. ‘It can’t be about any­thing else. I won­der what he’s go­ing to say. If he’s go­ing to pop, and the fa­ther in all this trou­ble, he’s the finest fel­low that ev­er trod.’ Such were her thoughts as she tapped at the door and an­nounced in the pres­ence of Grace that there was some­body in the hall.

‘It’s Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ whis­pered Anne, as soon as Grace had shut the door be­hind her.

‘So I sup­pose by your telling her not to go in­to the hall. What has he come to say?’

‘How on earth can I tell you that, Annabel­la? But I sup­pose he can have on­ly one thing to say af­ter all that has come and gone. He can on­ly have come with one ob­ject.’

‘He wouldn’t have come to me for that. He would have asked to see her­self.’

‘She nev­er goes out now, and he can’t see her.’

‘Or he would have gone to them over at Hog­gle­stock,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man. ‘But of course he must come up now he is here. Would you mind telling him? Of shall I ring the bell?’

‘I’ll tell him. We need not make more fuss than nec­es­sary, with the ser­vants, you know. I sup­pose I’d bet­ter not come back with him?’

There was a tone of sup­pli­ca­tion in the younger sis­ter’s voice as she made the last sug­ges­tion, which ought to have melt­ed the heart of the el­der; but it was un­avail­ing. ‘As he has asked to see me, I think you had bet­ter not,’ said Annabel­la. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man bore her cross meek­ly, of­fered no ar­gu­ment on the sub­ject, and re­turn­ing to the lit­tle par­lour where she had left the ma­jor, brought him up­stairs, and ush­ered him in­to her sis­ter’s room with­out even en­ter­ing it again, her­self.

Ma­jor Grant­ly was as in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with Miss Anne Pret­ty­man as a man un­der thir­ty may well be with a la­dy near­er fifty than forty, who is not spe­cial­ly con­nect­ed with him by any fam­ily tie; but of Miss Pret­ty­man he knew per­son­al­ly very much less. Miss Pret­ty­man, as has be­fore been said, did not go out, and was there­fore not com­mon to the eyes of the Sil­ver­brid­gians. She did oc­ca­sion­al­ly see her friends in her own house, and Grace Craw­ley’s lover, as the ma­jor had come to be called, had been there on more than one oc­ca­sion; but of re­al per­son­al in­ti­ma­cy be­tween them there had hith­er­to ex­ist­ed none. He might have spo­ken, per­haps a dozen words to her in his life. He had now more than a dozen to speak to her, but he hard­ly knew how to com­mence them.

She had got up and curt­seyed, and had then tak­en his hand and asked him to sit down. ‘My sis­ter tells me that you want to see me,’ she said in her soft­est, mildest voice.

‘I do, Miss Pret­ty­man. I want to speak to you about a mat­ter that trou­bles me very much–very much in­deed.’

‘Any­thing that I can do, Ma­jor Grant­ly–’

‘Thank you, yes. I know that you are very good, or I should not have ven­tured to come and see you. In­deed I shouldn’t trou­ble you now, of course, if it was on­ly about my­self. I know very well what a great friend you are to Miss Craw­ley.’

‘Yes, I am. We love Grace dear­ly here.’

‘So do I,’ said the ma­jor blunt­ly; ‘I love her dear­ly, too.’ Then he paused, as though he thought that Miss Pret­ty­man ought to take up the speech. But Miss Pret­ty­man seemed to think quite dif­fer­ent­ly, and he was obliged to go on. ‘I don’t know whether you have ev­er heard about it or no­ticed it, or–or–or–’ He felt that he was very awk­ward, and he blushed. Ma­jor as he was, he blushed as he sat be­fore the wom­an, try­ing to tell his sto­ry, but not know­ing how to tell it. ‘The truth is, Miss Pret­ty­man, I have done all but ask her to be my wife, and now has come this ter­ri­ble af­fair about her fa­ther.’

‘It is a ter­ri­ble af­fair, Ma­jor Grant­ly; very ter­ri­ble.’

‘By Jove, you may say that!’

‘Of course, Mr Craw­ley is as in­no­cent in the mat­ter as you or I are.’

‘You think so, Miss Pret­ty­man?’

‘Think so! I feel sure of it. What; a cler­gy­man of the Church of Eng­land, a pi­ous, hard-​work­ing coun­try gen­tle­man, whom we have known among us by his good works for years, sud­den­ly turn thief, and pil­fer a few pounds! It is not pos­si­ble, Ma­jor Grant­ly. And the fa­ther of such a daugh­ter, too! It is not pos­si­ble. It may do for men of busi­ness to think so, lawyers and such like, who are obliged to think in ac­cor­dance with the ev­idence, as they call it; but to my mind the idea is mon­strous. I don’t know how he got it, and I don’t care; but I’m quite sure he did not steal it. Who­ev­er heard of any­body be­com­ing so base as that all at once?’

The ma­jor was star­tled by her elo­quence, and by the in­dig­nant tone of voice in which it was ex­pressed. It seemed to tell him that she would give him no sym­pa­thy in that which he had come to say to her, and to up­braid him al­ready in that he was not pre­pared to do the mag­nif­icent thing of which he had thought when he had been build­ing his cas­tles in the air. Why should he not do the mag­nif­icent thing? Miss Pret­ty­man’s elo­quence was so strong that it half con­vinced him that the Barch­ester Club and Mr Walk­er had come to a wrong con­clu­sion af­ter all.

‘And how does Miss Craw­ley bear it?’ he asked, de­sirous of post­pon­ing for a while any dec­la­ra­tion of his own pur­pose.

‘She is very un­hap­py, of course. Not that she thinks evil of her fa­ther.’

‘Of course she does not think him guilty.’

‘No­body thinks him so in this house, Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said the lit­tle wom­an, very im­pe­ri­ous­ly. ‘But Grace is, nat­ural­ly enough, very sad;–very sad in­deed. I do not think I can ask you to see her to­day.’

‘I was not think­ing of it,’ said the ma­jor.

‘Poor, dear girl! It is a great tri­al for her. Do you wish me to give her any mes­sage, Ma­jor Grant­ly?’

The mo­ment had now come in which he must say that which he had come to say. The lit­tle wom­an wait­ed for an an­swer, and as he was there, with­in her pow­er as it were, he must speak. I fear that what he said will not be ap­proved by any strong-​mind­ed per­son. I fear that our lover will hence­forth be con­sid­ered by such a one as be­ing a weak, wishy-​washy man, who had hard­ly any mind of his own to speak of–that he was a man of no ac­count, as the poor peo­ple say. ‘Miss Pret­ty­man, what mes­sage ought I to give her?’

‘Nay, Ma­jor Grant­ly, how can I tell you that? How can I put words in­to your mouth?’

‘It isn’t the words,’ he said; ‘but the feel­ings.’

‘And how can I tell the feel­ings in your heart?’

‘Oh, as for that, I know what my feel­ings are. I do love her with all my heart;–I do, in­deed. A fort­night ago I was on­ly think­ing whether she would ac­cept me, and whether she would mind hav­ing Edith to take care of.’

‘She is very fond of Edith–very fond in­deed.’

‘Is she?’ said the ma­jor, more dis­tract­ed than ev­er. Why should he not do the mag­nif­icent thing af­ter all? ‘But it is a great charge for a girl when she mar­ries.’

‘It is a great charge–a very great charge. It is for you to think whether you should en­trust so great a charge to one so young.’

‘I have no fear about that at all.’

‘Nor should I have any–as you ask me. We have known Grace well, thor­ough­ly, and are quite sure that she will do her du­ty in that state of life to which it may please God to call her.’

The ma­jor was aware when this was said to him that he had not come to Miss Pret­ty­man for a char­ac­ter of the girl he loved; and yet he was not an­gry at re­ceiv­ing it. He was nei­ther an­gry, nor even in­dif­fer­ent. He ac­cept­ed the char­ac­ter most grate­ful­ly, though he felt that he was be­ing led away from his pur­pose. He con­soled him­self for this how­ev­er, by re­mem­ber­ing that the path which Miss Pret­ty­man was now lead­ing him, led to the mag­nif­icent, and to those pleas­ant cas­tles in the air which he had been build­ing as he walked in­to Sil­ver­bridge. ‘I am quite sure that she is all that you say,’ he replied. ‘In­deed I had made up my mind about that long ago.’

‘And what can I do for you, Ma­jor Grant­ly?’

‘You think that I ought not to see her?’

‘I will ask her, if you please. I have such trust in her judg­ment that I should leave her al­to­geth­er to her own dis­cre­tion.’

The mag­nif­icent thing must be done, and the ma­jor made up his mind ac­cord­ing­ly. Some­thing of re­gret came over his spir­it as he thought of a fa­ther-​in-​law dis­graced and de­grad­ed, and of his own fa­ther bro­ken-​heart­ed. But now there was hard­ly any al­ter­na­tive left to him. And was it not the man­ly thing for him to do? He had loved the girl be­fore this trou­ble had come up­on her, and was he not bound to ac­cept the bur­den which his love had brought with it? ‘I will see her,’ he said, ‘at once, if you will let me, and ask her to be my wife. But I must see her alone.’

Then Miss Pret­ty­man paused. Hith­er­to, she had un­doubt­ed­ly been play­ing her fish cau­tious­ly, or rather her young friend’s fish–per­haps I may say cun­ning­ly. She had de­scend­ed to ar­ti­fice on be­half of the girl whom she loved, ad­mired, and pitied. She had seen some way in­to the man’s mind, and had been part­ly aware of his pur­pose–of his in­fir­mi­ty of pur­pose, of his dou­ble pur­pose. She had per­ceived that a word from her might help Grace’s chance, and had led the man on till he had com­mit­ted him­self, at any rate to her. In do­ing this she had been ac­tu­at­ed by friend­ship rather than by ab­stract prin­ci­ple. But now, when the mo­ment had come in which she must de­cide up­on some ac­tion, she paused. Was it right, for the sake of ei­ther of them, that an of­fer of mar­riage should be made at such a mo­ment as this? It might be very well, in re­gard to some fu­ture time, that the ma­jor should have so com­mit­ted him­self. She saw some­thing of the man’s spir­it, and be­lieved that, hav­ing gone so far–hav­ing so far told his love, he would re­turn to his love here­after, let the re­sult of the Craw­ley tri­al be what it might. But–but, this could be no prop­er time for love-​mak­ing. Though Grace loved the man, as Miss Pret­ty­man knew well, though Grace loved the child, hav­ing al­lowed her­self to long to call it her own, though such a mar­riage could be the mak­ing of Grace’s for­tune as those who loved her could hard­ly have hoped that it should ev­er have been made, she would cer­tain­ly refuse the man, if he were to pro­pose to her now. She would refuse him, and then the man would be free;–free to change his mind if he saw fit. Con­sid­er­ing all these things, crafti­ly in the ex­er­cise of her friend­ship, too cun­ning­ly, I fear, to sat­is­fy the claims of a high moral­ity, she re­solved that the ma­jor had bet­ter not see Miss Craw­ley at the present mo­ment. Miss Pret­ty­man paused be­fore she replied, and, when she did speak, Ma­jor Grant­ly had risen from his chair and was stand­ing with his back to the fire. ‘Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ she said, ‘you shall see if you please, and if she pleas­es; but I doubt whether her an­swer at such a mo­ment as this would be that which you would wish to re­ceive.’

‘You think she would refuse me?’

‘I do not think she would ac­cept you now. She would feel–I am sure she would feel, that these hours of her fa­ther’s sor­row are not hours in which love should be ei­ther of­fered or ac­cept­ed. You shall, how­ev­er, see her if you please.’

The ma­jor al­lowed him­self a mo­ment for thought; and as he thought he sighed. Grace Craw­ley had be­come more beau­ti­ful in his eyes than ev­er, was en­dowed by these words from Miss Pret­ty­man with new charms and brighter virtues than he had seen be­fore. Let come what might he would ask her to be his wife on some fu­ture day; if he did not ask her now. For the present, per­haps, he had bet­ter be guid­ed by Miss Pret­ty­man. ‘Then I will not see her,’ he said.

‘I think that would be the wis­er course.’

‘Of course you knew be­fore this that I–loved her?’

‘I thought so, Ma­jor Grant­ly.’

‘And that I in­tend­ed to ask her to be my wife?’

‘Well; since you put the ques­tion to me so plain­ly, I must con­fess that as Grace’s friend I should not quite have let things go on as they have gone–though I am not at all dis­posed to in­ter­fere with any girl whom I be­lieve to be pure and good as I know her to be–but still I should hard­ly have been jus­ti­fied in let­ting things go on as they have gone, if I had not be­lieved that such was your pur­pose.’

‘I want­ed to set my­self right with you, Miss Pret­ty­man.’

‘You are right with me–quite right’; and she got up and gave him her hand. ‘You are a fine, no­ble-​heart­ed gen­tle­man, and I hope that our Grace may live to be your hap­py wife, and the moth­er of your dar­ling child, and the moth­er of oth­er chil­dren. I do not see how a wom­an could have a hap­pi­er lot in life.’

‘And will you give Grace my love?’

‘I will tell her at any rate that you have been here, and that you have in­quired af­ter her with the great­est kind­ness. She will un­der­stand what that means with­out any word of love.’

‘Can I do any­thing for her–or her fa­ther; I mean in the way of mon­ey? I don’t mind men­tion­ing it to you, Miss Pret­ty­man.’

‘I will tell her that you are ready to do it, if any­thing can be done. For my­self I feel no doubt that the mys­tery will be cleared up at last; and then, if you will come here, we shall be so glad to see you.–I shall at least.’

Then the ma­jor went, and Miss Pret­ty­man her­self ac­tu­al­ly de­scend­ed with him in­to the hall, and bade him farewell most af­fec­tion­ate­ly be­fore her sis­ter and two of the maids who came out to open the door. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man, when she saw the great friend­ship with which the ma­jor was dis­missed, could not con­tain her­self, but asked most im­pu­dent ques­tions, in a whis­per in­deed, but in such a whis­per that any sharp-​eared maid-​ser­vant could hear and un­der­stand them. ‘Is it set­tled,’ she asked when her sis­ter had as­cend­ed on­ly the first flight of stairs;–’has he popped?’ The look with which her el­der sis­ter pun­ished and dis­mayed the younger, I would not have borne for twen­ty pounds. She sim­ply looked, and said noth­ing, but passed on. When she had re­gained her room she rang the bell, and de­sired to ask the ser­vant to ask Miss Craw­ley to be good enough to step to her. Poor Miss Anne re­tired dis­com­fort­ed in­to the soli­tude of one of the low­er rooms, and sat for some min­utes all alone, re­cov­er­ing from the shock of her sis­ter’s anger. ‘At any rate, he hasn’t popped,’ she said to her­self, as she made her way back to the school.

Af­ter that Miss Pret­ty­man and Miss Craw­ley were clos­et­ed to­geth­er for about an hour. What passed be­tween them need not be re­peat­ed here word for word; but it may be un­der­stood that Miss Pret­ty­man said no more than she ought to have said, and that Grace un­der­stood all that she ought to have un­der­stood.

‘No man ev­er be­haved with more con­sid­er­ate friend­ship, or more like a gen­tle­man,’ said Miss Pret­ty­man.

‘I am sure he is very good, and I am so glad he did not ask to see me,’ said Grace. Then Grace went away, and Miss Pret­ty­man sat awhile in thought, con­sid­er­ing what she had done, not with­out some stings of con­science.

Ma­jor Grant­ly as he walked home was not al­to­geth­er sat­is­fied with him­self, though he gave him­self cred­it for some diplo­ma­cy which I do not think he de­served. He felt that Miss Pret­ty­man and the world in gen­er­al, should the world in gen­er­al ev­er hear any­thing about it, would give him cred­it for hav­ing be­haved well; and that he had ob­tained this cred­it with­out com­mit­ting him­self to the ne­ces­si­ty of mar­ry­ing the daugh­ter of a thief, should things turn out bad­ly in re­gard to the fa­ther. But–and this but robbed him of all the plea­sure which comes from re­al suc­cess–but he had not treat­ed Grace Craw­ley with the per­fect gen­eros­ity which love owes, and he was in some de­gree ashamed of him­self. He felt, how­ev­er, that he might prob­ably have Grace, should he choose to ask for her when this trou­ble should have passed by. ‘And I will,’ he said to him­self, as he en­tered the gate of his own pad­dock, and saw his child in her per­am­bu­la­tor be­fore the nurse. ‘And I will ask her, soon­er or lat­er, let things go as they may.’ Then he took the per­am­bu­la­tor un­der his own charge for half-​an-​hour, to the sat­is­fac­tion of the nurse, of the child, and of him­self.