hat young Major Grantly of Cosby Lodge, who, though a widower
with a young child, was the cynosure of all female eyes in and
around Silverbridge, had found beauty in her thin face, and that
Grace Crawley's fortune was made in the teeth, as it were, of the
prevailing ill-fortune of her family. Bob Crawley, who was two years
younger, was now at Marlbro' School, from whence it was intended that
he should proceed to Cambridge, and be educated there at the expense
of his godfather, Dean Arabin. In this also the world saw a stroke of
good luck. But then nothing was lucky to Mr. Crawley. Bob, indeed, who
had done well at school, might do well at Cambridge,--might achieve
great things there. But Mr. Crawley would almost have preferred that
the boy should work in the fields, than that he should be educated in
a manner so manifestly eleemosynary. And then his clothes! How was
he to be provided with clothes fit either for school or for college?
But the dean and Mrs. Crawley between them managed this, leaving Mr
Crawley very much in the dark, as Mrs. Crawley was in the habit of
leaving him. Then there was a younger daughter, Jane, still at home,
who passed her life between her mother's work-table and her father's
Greek, mending linen, and learning to scan iambics,--for Mr. Crawley
in his early days had been a ripe scholar.

And now there had come upon them all this terribly-crushing disaster.
That poor Mr. Crawley had gradually got himself into a mess of debt at
Silverbridge, from which he was quite unable to extricate himself,
was generally known by all the world both of Silverbridge and
Hogglestock. To a great many it was known that Dean Arabin had
paid money for him, very much contrary to his own consent, and
that he had quarrelled, or attempted to quarrel, with the dean in
consequence,--had so attempted, although the money had in part passed
through his own hands. There had been one creditor, Fletcher, the
butcher of Silverbridge, who had of late been specially hard upon
poor Crawley. This man, who had not been without good nature in his
dealings, had heard stories of the dean's good-will and such like,
and had loudly expressed his opinion that the perpetual curate of
Hogglestock would show a higher pride in allowing himself to be
indebted to a rich brother clergyman, than in remaining under thrall
to a butcher. And thus a rumour had grown up. And then the butcher
had written repeated letters to the bishop,--to Bishop Proudie o