timation, should have so few of those
adjuncts to assist her which come from full pockets. She had thought
no more about it then; but now she felt herself constrained to think
more. "I don't quite understand why he should have come to Miss
Prettyman on Monday," said Grace, "because he hardly knows her at
all."

"I suppose it was on business," said Mrs. Crawley.

"No, mamma, it was not on business."

"How can you tell, dear?"

"Because Miss Prettyman said it was,--it was--to ask after me. Oh,
mamma, I must tell you. I know he did like me."

"Did he ever say so to you, dearest?"

"Yes, mamma."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him nothing, mamma."

"And did he ask to see you on Monday?"

"No, mamma; I don't think he did. I think he understood it all too
well, for I could not have spoken to him then."

Mrs. Crawley pursued the cross-examination no further, but made up her
mind that it would be better that her girl should be away from her
wretched home during this period of her life. If it were written in
the book of fate that one of her children should be exempted from the
series of misfortunes which seemed to fall, one after another, almost
as a matter of course, upon her husband, upon her, and upon her
family; if so great good fortune were in store for her Grace as such
a marriage as this which seemed to be so nearly offered to her, it
might probably be well that Grace should be as little at home as
possible. Mrs. Crawley had heard nothing but good of Major Grantly;
but she knew that the Grantlys were proud rich people,--who lived
with their heads high up in the county,--and it could hardly be that
a son of the archdeacon would like to take his bride direct from
Hogglestock parsonage.

It was settled that Grace should go to Allington as soon as a letter
could be received from Miss Dale in return to Grace's note, and on
the third morning after her arrival at home she started. None but
they who have themselves been poor gentry,--gentry so poor as not to
know how to raise a shilling,--can understand the peculiar bitterness
of the trials which such poverty produces. The poverty of the normal
poor does not approach it; or, rather, the pangs arising from such
poverty are altogether of a different sort. To be hungry and have no
food, to be cold and have no fuel, to be threatened with distraint
for one's few chairs and tables, and with the loss of the roof over
one's head,--all these miseries, which, if the