Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 1.djvu/291

Rh 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 I will 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 to-day, 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 she becomes a woman. She talks French, and Italian, and Hebrew for anything that I know; 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 of 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 I think he is worth having. He must wait till this horrid trial is over. It is clear to me that Grace thinks that 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