'No; they are not her nieces but her cousins. Emily Dunstable is very
handsome;--and as for money--!'

'But what about birth, mother?'

'One can't have everything, my dear.'

'As far as I am concerned, I should like to have everything or nothing,'
the major said, laughing. Now for him to think of Grace Crawley after
that--of Grace Crawley who had no money, and no particular birth, and
not even beauty herself--so at least Mrs Grantly said--who had not even
enjoyed the ordinary education of a lady, was too bad. Nothing had been
wanting to Emily Dunstable's education, and it was calculated that she
would have at least twenty thousand pounds on the day of her marriage.

The disappointment of the mother would be the more sore because she had
gone to work upon her little scheme with reference to Miss Emily
Dunstable, and had at first, as she thought, seen her way to success--to
success in spite of the disparaging words her son had spoken to her. Mrs
Thorne's house at Chaldicotes--or Dr Thorne's house as it should,
perhaps, be more commonly called, for Dr Thorne was the husband of Mrs
Thorne--was in these days the pleasantest house in Barsetshire. No one
saw so much company as the Thornes, or spent so much money in so
pleasant a way. The great county families, the Pallisers and the De
Courcys, the Luftons and the Greshams, were no doubt grander, and some
of them were perhaps richer than the Chaldicote Thornes--as they were
called to distinguish them from the Thornes of Ullathorne; but none of
these people were so pleasant in their ways, so free in their
hospitality, or so easy in their modes of living, as the doctor and his
wife. When first Chaldicotes, a very old country seat, had by the