第119章

'If he had anything to say to Grace, I suppose he said it.'

'He asked her to marry him, of course. We none of us had any doubt about that. He swore to her that she and none but she should be his wife--and all that kind of thing. But he seems to have done it in the most prosaic way;--and now he has gone away without saying a word to any of us. I shall never speak to him again--unless Grace asks me.'

'Grace, my dear, may I congratulate you?' said Mrs Dale.

Grace did not answer, as Lily was too quick for her. 'Oh, she has refused him, of course. But, Major Grantly is a man of too much sense to expect that he should succeed the first time. Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she may tell him one truth.'

'I told him no fib, Lily. I told him that I would not marry him and Iwill not.'

'But why not, dear Grace?' said Mrs Dale.

'Because the people say that papa is a thief!' Having said this, Grace walked slowly out of the room, and neither Mrs Dale nor Lily attempted to follow her.

'She's as good as gold,' said Lily, when the door was closed.

'And he;--what of him?'

'I think he is good too; but she has told me nothing yet of what he has said to her. He must be good, or he would not have come down here after her. But I don't wonder at his coming, because she is so beautiful! Once or twice as we were walking back today, I thought her face was the most lovely that I had ever seen. And did you see her just now, as she spoke of her father?'

'Oh, yes;--I saw her.'

'Think what she will be in two or three years' time, when he becomes a woman. She talks French, and Italian, and Hebrew for anything that Iknow; and she is perfectly beautiful. I never saw a more lovely figure;--and she has spirit enough for a goddess. I don't think that Major Grantly is such a fool after all.'

'I never took him for a fool.'

'I have no doubt all his own people do;--or they will, when they hear of it. But, mamma, she will grow to be big enough to walk atop all the Lady Hartletops in England. It will all come right at last.'

'You think it will?'

'Oh, yes. Why should it not? If he is worth having, it will;--and Ithink he is worth having. He must wait till this horrid trial is over.

It is clear to me that Grace thinks her father will be convicted.'

'But he cannot have taken the money.'

'I think he took it, and I think it wasn't his. But I don't think he stole it. I don't know whether you can understand the difference.'

'I am afraid a jury won't understand it.'

'A jury of men will not. I wish they could put you and me on it, mamma.

I would take my best boots and eat them down to the heels, for Grace's sake, and for Major Grantly's. What a good-looking man he is!'

'Yes, he is.'

'And so like a gentleman! I'll tell you what, mamma; we won't say anything to her about him for the present. Her heart will be so full she will be driven to talk, and we can comfort her better in that way.' The mother and daughter agreed to act upon these tactics and nothing more was said to Grace about her lover on that evening.