understand it--that she could not see anything at all in Grace Crawley.
Mr Walker had shrugged his shoulders and expressed a confident belief
that Major Grantly had not a shilling of his own beyond his half-pay and
his late wife's fortune, which was only six thousand pounds. Others, who
were ill-natured, had declared that Grace Crawley was little better than
a beggar, and that she could not possibly have acquired the manners of a
gentlewoman. Fletcher the butcher had wondered whether the major would
pay his future father-in-law's debts; and Dr Tempest, the old Rector of
Silverbridge, whose four daughters were all as yet unmarried, had turned
up his old nose, and had hinted that half-pay majors did not get caught
in marriage so easily as that.

Such and such like had been the expressions of the opinions of men and
women in Silverbridge. But the matter had been discussed further afield
than at Silverbridge, and had been allowed to intrude itself as a most
unwelcome subject into the family conclave of the archdeacon's rectory.
To those who have not as yet learned the fact from the public character
and well-appreciated reputation of the man, let it be known that
Archdeacon Grantly was at this time, as he had been for many years
previously, Archdeacon of Barchester and Rector of Plumstead Episcopi. A
rich and prosperous man he had even been--though he also had had his
sore troubles, as we all have--his having arisen chiefly from want of
that higher ecclesiastical promotion which his soul had coveted, and for
which the whole tenor of his life had especially fitted him. Now, in his
green old age, he had ceased to covet, but had not ceased to repine. He
had ceased to covet aught for himself, but still coveted much for his
children; and for him such a marriage as this which was now suggested
for his son, was encompassed almost with the bitterness of death. 'I
think it would kill me,' he said to his wife; 'by heavens, I think it
would be my death!'