Henry's
income?" Mrs. Grantly also was dressing, and made reply out of her
bedroom.

"Upon my word, I don't know. As a father I would do anything to
prevent such a marriage as that."

"But if he did marry her in spite of the threat? And he would if he
had once said so."

"Is a father's word, then, to go for nothing; and a father who allows
his son eight hundred a year? If he told the girl that he would be
ruined she couldn't hold him to it."

"My dear, they'd know as well as I do, that you would give way after
three months."

"But why should I give way? Good heavens--!"

"Of course you'd give way, and of course we should have the young
woman here, and of course we should make the best of it."

The idea of having Grace Crawley as a daughter at the Plumstead
Rectory was too much for the archdeacon, and he resented it by
additional vehemence to the tone of his voice, and a nearer personal
approach to the wife of his bosom. All unaccoutred as he was, he
stood in the doorway between the two rooms, and thence fulminated
at his wife his assurances that he would never allow himself to be
immersed in such a depth of humility as that she had suggested. "I
can tell you this, then, that if ever she comes here, I shall take
care to be away. I will never receive her here. You can do as you
please."

"That is just what I cannot do. If I could do as I pleased, I would
put a stop to it at once."

"It seems to me that you want to encourage him. A child about sixteen
years of age!"

"I am told she is nineteen."

"What does it matter if she is fifty-nine? Think of what her bringing
up has been. Think what it would be to have all the Crawleys in our
house for ever, and all their debts, and all their disgrace!"

"I do not know that they have ever been disgraced."

"You'll see. The whole county has heard of the affair of this twenty
pounds. Look at that dear girl upstairs, who has been such a comfort
to us. Do you think it would be fit that she and her husband should
meet such a one as Grace Crawley at our table?"

"I don't think it would do them a bit of harm," said Mrs. Grantly.
"But there would be no chance of that, seeing that Griselda's husband
never comes to us."

"He was here the year before last."

"And I never was so tired of a man in all my life."

"Then you prefer the Crawleys, I suppose. This is what you get from
Eleanor's teaching." Eleanor was the dean's wife, and Mrs. Grantly's
younger sister. "It has