wo young ladies had walked as far as Guestwick Cottage, and that
Mrs. Dale was at this moment at the Great House with the squire. She
had gone across soon after the young ladies had started. The maid,
however, was interrupted before she had finished telling all this to
the major, by finding her mistress behind her in the passage. Mrs
Dale had returned, and had entered the house from the lawn.

"I am here now, Jane," said Mrs. Dale, "if the gentleman wishes to see
me."

Then the major announced himself. "My name is Major Grantly," said
he; and he was blundering on with some words about his own intrusion,
when Mrs. Dale begged him to follow her into the drawing-room. He had
muttered something to the effect that Mrs. Dale would not know who
he was; but Mrs. Dale knew all about him, and had heard the whole
of Grace's story from Lily. She and Lily had often discussed the
question whether, under existing circumstances, Major Grantly should
feel himself bound to offer his hand to Grace, and the mother and
daughter had differed somewhat on the matter. Mrs. Dale had held that
he was not so bound, urging that the unfortunate position in which Mr
Crawley was placed was so calamitous to all connected with him, as to
justify any man, not absolutely engaged, in abandoning the thoughts
of such a marriage. Mrs. Dale had spoken of Major Grantly's father
and mother and brother and sister, and had declared her opinion that
they were entitled to consideration. But Lily had opposed this idea
very stoutly, asserting that in an affair of love a man should think
neither of father or brother or mother or sister. "If he is worth
anything," Lily had said, "he will come to her now,--in her trouble;
and will tell her that she at least has got a friend who will be true
to her. If he does that, then I shall think that there is something
of the poetry and nobleness of love left." In answer to this Mrs
Dale had replied that women had no right to expect from men such
self-denying nobility as that. "I don't expect it, mamma," said Lily.
"And I am sure that Grace does not. Indeed I am quite sure that Grace
does not expect even to see him ever again. She never says so, but I
know that she has made up her mind about it. Still I think he ought
to come." "It can hardly be that a man is bound to do a thing, the
doing of which, as you confess, would be almost more than noble,"
said Mrs. Dale. And so the matter had been discussed between them.
But now, as it s