the archdeacon himself was so big and
so clerical, and so imposing. Her father's aspect was severe, but the
severity of her father's face was essentially different from that
expressed by the archdeacon. Whatever impression came from her father
came from the man himself. There was no outward adornment there;
there was, so to say, no wig about Mr. Crawley. Now the archdeacon
was not exactly adorned; but he was so thoroughly imbued with high
clerical belongings and sacerdotal fitnesses as to appear always as
a walking, sitting, or standing impersonation of parsondom. To poor
Grace, as she entered the room, he appeared to be an impersonation of
parsondom in its severest aspect.

"Miss Crawley, I believe?" said he.

"Yes, sir," said she, curtseying ever so slightly, as she stood
before him at some considerable distance.

His first idea was that his son must be indeed a fool if he was going
to give up Cosby Lodge and all Barsetshire, and retire to Pau, for so
slight and unattractive a creature as he now saw before him. But this
idea stayed with him only for a moment. As he continued to gaze at
her during the interview he came to perceive that there was very
much more than he had perceived at the first glance, and that his
son, after all, had had eyes to see, though perhaps not a heart to
understand.

"Will you not take a chair?" he said. Then Grace sat down, still at
a distance from the archdeacon, and he kept his place upon the rug.
He felt that there would be a difficulty in making her feel the
full force of his eloquence all across the room; and yet he did not
know how to bring himself nearer to her. She became suddenly very
important in his eyes, and he was to some extent afraid of her.
She was so slight, so meek, so young; and yet there was about
her something so beautifully feminine,--and, withal, so like a
lady,--that he felt instinctively that he could not attack her with
harsh words. Had her lips been full, and her colour high, and had
her eyes rolled, had she put forth against him any of that ordinary
artillery with which youthful feminine batteries are charged, he
would have been ready to rush to the combat. But this girl, about
whom his son had gone mad, sat there as passively as though she
were conscious of the possession of no artillery. There was not a
single gun fired from beneath her eyelids. He knew not why, but he
respected his son now more than he had respected him for the last two
months;--more, per