said, "what you say does you very much honour,--very much honour
indeed." Now that he was close to her, he could look into her
eyes, and he could see the exact form of her features, and could
understand,--could not help understanding,--the character of her
countenance. It was a noble face, having in it nothing that was poor,
nothing that was mean, nothing that was shapeless. It was a face that
promised infinite beauty, with a promise that was on the very verge
of fulfilment. There was a play about her mouth as she spoke, and a
curl in her nostrils as the eager words came from her, which almost
made the selfish father give way. Why had they not told him that
she was such a one as this? Why had not Henry himself spoken of the
speciality of her beauty? No man in England knew better than the
archdeacon the difference between beauty of one kind and beauty
of another kind in a woman's face,--the one beauty, which comes
from health and youth and animal spirits, and which belongs to the
miller's daughter, and the other beauty, which shows itself in fine
lines and a noble spirit,--the beauty which comes from breeding.
"What you say does you very much honour indeed," said the archdeacon.

"I should not mind at all about being poor," said Grace.

"No; no; no," said the archdeacon.

"Poor as we are,--and no clergyman, I think, was ever so poor,--I
should have done as your son asked me at once, if it had been only
that,--because I love him."

"If you love him you will not wish to injure him."

"I will not injure him. Sir, there is my promise." And now as she
spoke she rose from her chair, and standing close to the archdeacon,
laid her hand very lightly on the sleeve of his coat. "There is my
promise. As long as people say that papa stole the money, I will
never marry your son. There."

The archdeacon was still looking down at her, and feeling the slight
touch of her fingers, raised his arm a little as though to welcome
the pressure. He looked into her eyes, which were turned eagerly
towards his, and when doing so was quite sure that the promise would
be kept. It would have been a sacrilege,--he felt that it would have
been sacrilege,--to doubt such a promise. He almost relented. His
soft heart, which was never very well under his own control, gave
way so far that he was nearly moved to tell her that, on his son's
behalf, he acquitted her of the promise. What could any man's son do
better than have such a woman for his wife?