have become so desperately temperate.'

'We take our wine at dinner, sir.'

'By-the-by, how well Griselda is looking.'

'Yes, she is. It's always easy for women to look well when they're
rich.' How would Grace Crawley look, then, who was poor as poverty
itself, and who would remain poor, if his son was fool enough to marry
her? That was the train of thought which ran through the archdeacon's
mind. 'I do not think much of riches,' said he, 'but it is always well
that a gentleman's wife or a gentleman's daughter should have a
sufficiency to maintain her position in life.'

'You may say the same, sir, of everybody's wife and everybody's
daughter.'

'You know what I mean, Henry.'

'I am not quite sure that I do, sir.'

'Perhaps I had better speak out at once. A rumour has reached your
mother and me, which we don't believe for a moment, but which,
nevertheless, makes us unhappy even as a report. They say that there is
a young woman living in Silverbridge to whom you are becoming attached.'

'Is there any reason why I should not become attached to a young woman
in Silverbridge?--though I hope any young woman to whom I may become
attached will be worthy at any rate of being called a young lady.'